transportation route for fur trade brigades' York boats, to which it was especially well suited as it follows an eastern trend toward Hudsons Bay, the entry point for the HBC into Canada. Many fur trade posts were constructed on the river, including Fort Edmonton (1795) and Rocky Mountain House, the uppermost post reached by canoe navigation. The river's importance continued after the amalgamation of the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company. The river was plied by a number of steamboats right up to WWI, although for everyday freight the growing web of railway lines in the western prairies eventually replaced them. The river was used commercially for many years - to carry flatboats of settlers goods and construction materials downstream from Edmonton, to float thousands of logs in the annual log drive downstream to Edmonton prior to WWI, as a source of ice blocks for home owners' iceboxes. The first bridge across the river opened in 1900, the Low Level Bridge (Edmonton). The Canadian Northern Railway Bridge (Prince Albert) (1907-9), which also at first carried foot and wheeled traffic, and the Battleford bridge (ca. 1908) followed. Recreation Edmonton's North Saskatchewan River valley parks system is the largest system of urban parks in Canada, and covers both sides of the river valley's course through Edmonton. The River Valley Alliance, a non-profit organization composed of seven municipalities which border the North Saskatchewan River, is currently working to create a continuous trail network from the town of Devon to the city of Fort Saskatchewan – a total of . Fish species Fish species include: walleye, sauger, yellow perch, northern pike, goldeye, mooneye, lake sturgeon, mountain whitefish, burbot, longnose sucker, white sucker and shorthead redhorse. The upper North Saskatchewan River contains cutthroat trout (although not native), and bull trout Flooding Like all rivers, the North Saskatchewan is subject to periodic flooding, beginning with rapid snowmelt in the mountains or prolonged periods of rain in the river basin. With the establishment of permanent communities along the river's course, and the rise of an administrative/government structure, records exist recording floods in the North Saskatchewan for the past century. The Bighorn Dam, constructed in the early 1970s near Nordegg, Alberta, and the Brazeau Dam, constructed in the mid-1960s, have not reduced flooding potential on the North Saskatchewan River (Alberta Environment 1981) List of notable flood years Flood of 1899 The river peaked at a stage