Town of Fort Smith

The Town of Fort Smith offers a unique blend of northern living and municipal amenities. The affordable housing and abundance of recreational activities attracts families and businesses who appreciate the vibrant community atmosphere.
The Town’s emblem was designed by the late University of Saskatchewan engineering professor A.L.C. Atkinson, at the request of Town Council.
The following is a brief poem describing the emblem:
The Town of Fort Smith owes its existence to the four sets of formidable rapids on the Slave River. These rapids had to be portaged around by the fur traders who settled the North. Portaging was originally done in three stages on the east bank of the river, but was eventually pared to a single 16-mile portage on the west bank. When the single portage was initiated in 1874, the Hudson Bay Company built premises at “Thebacha”, a small settlement below the rapids established by James King Beaulieu, thereby creating what would become the Town of Fort Smith.
The settlement was named for Donald Alexander Smith, Lord Strathcona, the resident governor of the Hudson Bay Company and an original member of the North West Council.