Paint Red Deer

About Red Deer

Red Deer is a city in Alberta, Canada, located midway on the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. Red Deer serves central Alberta, and its key industries include health care, retail trade, construction, oil and gas, hospitality, manufacturing and education. It is surrounded by Red Deer County and borders on Lacombe County. The city is in aspen parkland, a region of rolling hills, alongside the Red Deer River. == History == The area was inhabited by First Nations including the Blackfoot, Plains Cree and Stoney before the arrival of European fur traders in the late eighteenth century. A First Nations trail ran from the Montana Territory across the Bow River near present-day Calgary and on to Fort Edmonton, later known as the Calgary and Edmonton Trail. The trail crossed the Red Deer River at a wide, stony shallows. The "Old Red Deer Crossing" is 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) upstream from the present-day city. Cree people called the river Waskasoo Seepee, which means "Elk River." European arrivals sometimes called North American elk "red deer," after the related Eurasian species, and later named the community after the river. The name for the modern city in Plains Cree is a calque of the English name (mihkwâpisimosos, literally "red type of deer"), while the name of the river itself is still wâwâskêsiw-sîpiy or "elk river." First Nations on the north side of the river entered into Treaty 6 in 1876 and on the south side Treaty 7 in 1877.