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handsomest stores west of Winnipeg".) A picture of the building is shown in one of the business section scenes in this book. It was destroyed by fire on January l l th, 1913 and the Company did not rebuild.
PIERRE GAUL TIER DE VARENNES, SIEUR DE LA VERENDRYE
Porta gel'S have reason to be particularly interested in this man
because of his connection with early history here. It is likely that other places where he built forts share the same interest in his name.
His first fort, built in 1731, was named St. Pierre and was in the Rainy River area. His next fort, built in 1732, was named St. Charles. Moving west in 1733, he built Fort Maurepas, and moving still farther west he built Fort de la Reine two miles south-east of Poplar Point Station (according to Peter Fidler in his survey in 1808) in 1738.
Historians pretty well agree on the above data but are at variance on the date the second Fort de la Reine was established at Portage la Prairie. A. S. Morton, the Saskatchewan historian, was of the opinion that the first Fort de la Reine at Poplar Point was only a temporary structure made up of a few shacks inside a palisade, and that the second Fort de la Reine at Portage was erected in 1739. Mr. Adolph Dack, President of the Pembina Hills Historical Society, told the Enterprise press (Oct. 22, 1952) that the fort was moved from Poplar Point to Portage la Prairie in 1743 or 1744 - which is a difference of four to five years in the estimated dates of the two gentlemen re establishment of the fort here.
There is also a difference in meaning of the words 'moved' and 'erected'l Was Fort de la Reine at Poplar Point dismantled and the material used to erect the fort by the same name at Portage la Prairie? Or was it abandoned and a fort built of new materials here? At this late date there is actually no way of knowing. However, it doesn't seem logical that, in a land where there was an abundance of timber, they would go to the trouble of tearing down log buildings to transport them at much inconvenience to a new fort site several miles away. We might therefore assume that the word 'moved' was not meant to be taken literally.
Mr. Barry Hyman, Assistant Provincial Archivist, went to con siderable trouble to come up with some authentic dates for this book re Fort de la Reine. In a letter dated June 13th, 1968, he says,