William Bredin

William Fletcher Bredin (1862 – 1942) was a Canadian politician and pioneer. Born in Stormont County, Ontario,^[1] he came west to Red Deer Crossing in 1883, where he took over a claim from Esias Myers. He subsequently moved to Calgary, where he opened a store with R. Steen, engaged in freighting between Calgary and Edmonton, and was active with the Oddfellows. He also established the Climax coal mine, 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Calgary.^[2] He later moved to Edmonton and then further north, establishing the Buffalo Lakes Trading Post in the area later known as Lamerton in 1892, when there were only seven settlers in the area. He sold the post to Joe Edminson in 1895.^[3] Around 1897, he travelled by boat down the Athabasca River to the Mackenzie River.^[1]

He eventually settled in the Peace River Country, where he opened a series of fur trading posts with James Cornwall; they sold these to the Revillon Frères in 1906.^[4] By 1907 he claimed to have lived "all over the Northwest pretty well".^[1]

He ran in 1905 Alberta provincial election as a Liberal in Athabasca, and was the only candidate acclaimed during that election.^[5] In office, he advocated for a railway to be built into the northeast corner of the province.^[6] He also gave testimony to a select committee of the Senate of Canada in 1907 about agricultural conditions in northwest Canada, drawing on his experience living and travelling in the area, including his boat trip down the Athabasca of ten years before.^[1] In his testimony, he estimated that the "good land north of Edmonton, east of the Rocky mountains" amounted to at least 100,000,000 acres (40,000,000 ha).^[7] He married Anna Brown Marsh in Clarksburg, Ontario in September 1907.^[8]

Bredin sought re-election in the 1909 election, but was defeated by fellow Liberal Jean Côté.^[9] He sought to return to office in Peace River in the 1913 election as an independent Liberal, but finished a distant third of three candidates.^[10]

After leaving office, Bredin returned to farming and fur trading around Lesser Slave Lake. During the 1920s, he served as a director of the United Farmers of Alberta; in this capacity, he moved a successful resolution protesting a new pelt tax, as many northern farmers supplemented their incomes by trapping.^[11]

William Bredin died on December 30, 1942 at the age of 80.^[12]

Electoral record

References

• Davis, Thomas Osborne (1908). Canada's Fertile Northland: a glimpse of the enormous resources of part of the unexplored regions of the Dominion; evidence heard before a select committee of the Senate of Canada during the parliamentary session of 1906–07, and the report based thereon 1. Government Printing Bureau. Retrieved 2009-10-13. 
• Rennie, Bradford (2000). The Rise of Agrarian Democracy: The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta, 1909–1921. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, Incorporated. ISBN 0-8020-8374-9. 
• Thomas, Lewis Gwynne (1959). The Liberal Party in Alberta. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Notes

External links

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