shaganappi and wood are brought; a cart can break a half-dozen axles in a one-way trip. The axles are ungreased, as grease will capture dust, which acts as sandpaper and can immobilize the cart. The resultant squeal sounds like an untuned violin, giving it the sobriquet "the North West fiddle"; one visitor wrote that "a den of wild beasts cannot be compared with its hideousness." Uses The Red River Trails on which the carts were used extended from the Red River Colony via fur-trading posts, such as Pembina and St. Joseph in the Red River Valley, to Mendota and St. Paul, Minnesota. Furs were the usual cargo on the trip to St. Paul, and trade goods and supplies were carried on the trip back to the colony. The Carlton Trail was also an important route for the carts, running from the Red River Colony west to Fort Carlton and Fort Edmonton in present-day Saskatchewan and Alberta, with branches such as the Fort à la Corne Trail. The carts were the primary conveyance in the Canadian West from early settlement until the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway toward the end of the century. Carts could not be used west of Fort Edmonton because there were no roads or trails passable by wheeled vehicles over the Rocky Mountains. The Hudson's Bay Company would use Red River carts as their main commercial cart in the 1860s. This was due to an increased success of the Minnesota cart route instead of the York Factory boat route. Invented and developed by the Métis and Countryborn peoples the Red River cart became a symbol of their heritage rooted in mobility and social networks. Surviving examples, models and replicas The National Museum of American History displays a Red River cart collected in the 1850s in its American Enterprise exhibition. Models may be found at St. Louis, Selkirk, Manitoba, Duck Lake and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The Clay County, Minnesota, Historical Society, and Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver, Washington has a full-scale replica cart. Fort Nisqually Living History Museum in Washington State has a half-scale replica. Fort Snelling, a historic site near Saint Paul, Minnesota operated by the Minnesota Historical Society, has a full-sized replica. The fort was an important early stop for traffic on what would become the Red River Trail. The Remington Carriage Museum, Cardston, Alberta, also has a full-size replica of a Red