Mackenzie River
History

The Mackenzie valley is believed to have been the path taken by prehistoric peoples during the initial human migration from Asia to North America more than 10,000 years ago. However, archaeological evidence of human habitation along the Mackenzie is scant, despite the efforts of many researchers. Many archaeological sites have probably been destroyed by flooding, freeze-thaw and erosion. The Inuvialuit, Gwich'in and other Indigenous peoples have lived along the river for thousands of years; however, the oldest known evidence of continuous occupation stretches back only about 1300–1400 years, at the Gwich'in community of Tsiigehtchic.

The Mackenzie provided the major route into Canada's northern interior for European explorers as early as the late 18th century. Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie travelled the river in the hope it would lead to the Pacific Ocean, but instead reached its mouth on the Arctic Ocean on 14 July 1789. There is a story, likely apocryphal, that he named it "Disappointment River", but eventually it was named after him. No European reached its mouth again until Sir John Franklin on 16 August 1825 during the 1825–1827 Mackenzie River expedition. The following year he traced the coast west until blocked by ice while John Richardson followed the coast east to the Coppermine River. In 1849 William Pullen reached the Mackenzie from the Bering Strait.

In the following decades the North West Company established forts on the river, the precursors of present-day settlements such as Fort Simpson (formerly Fort of the Forks). A lucrative fur trade was carried out, as the Mackenzie basin teemed with beaver and muskrat. However, the short summer and harsh winter conditions limited trappers' activities. During the late 19th century Fort Simpson was regional headquarters for the Hudson's Bay Company. The first fur trappers were native, but starting in the 1920s increasing numbers of European trappers entered the region. Beaver and muskrat populations were heavily depleted, especially in areas around and south of Great Slave Lake.

Catholic missionary Henri Grollier founded missions at Fort Simpson, Fort Norman and Fort Good Hope between 1858 and 1859.

During the late 19th century and early 20th century epidemics of introduced European diseases swept through Indigenous communities along the river, and thousands of native people lost their lives. One particularly severe influenza in 1928 killed as many as one in ten native people along the Mackenzie River. Fort Providence lost 20 percent of its population, and some smaller villages and camps were completely wiped out.

Steamboat service on the Mackenzie River began in the 1880s, and the number of vessels surged in the early 1900s as the Klondike Gold Rush brought a wave of prospectors to the Yukon. The Mackenzie River was one of the main routes into the northern interior, with sternwheelers transporting passengers, domestic supplies and industrial goods from as far upstream as the Athabasca River all the way to the delta, though with several areas such as the huge rapids on the Slave River requiring portages. The route taken by gold seekers started in Edmonton and followed the Athabasca, Slave and Mackenzie Rivers as far as the Peel River, then up the Peel and its tributary the Rat River to the headwaters of the Porcupine River, which flows to the Yukon River. Many who attempted the 3,200-kilometre (2,000 mi) journey died along the way or turned back before reaching the Yukon.

Oil was discovered at Norman Wells in the 1920s, beginning a period of industrialization in the Mackenzie valley. Oil was initially shipped out by steamboats, supplying mines and towns across the NWT. This demand grew when gold was discovered on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, leading to the settlement of Yellowknife and the opening of several mines in the area. By the 1940s steamboats had been replaced by modern gas and diesel-powered craft, which continue to serve the river today. During World War II oil pumped in Norman Wells was shipped to Fairbanks, Alaska via the 1,000-kilometre (620 mi) Canol pipeline. The pipeline was considered a "fiasco", going five times over budget and losing as much as 20 percent of the oil due to poor construction. It only operated for thirteen months, shutting down in 1945. Much abandoned equipment remains along the corridor today; part of the pipeline route has been designated the Canol Heritage Trail. In 1964 the Mackenzie Northern Railway (now a subsidiary of CN) reached the shore of Great Slave Lake, to serve the new Pine Point zinc mine near Hay River. Although the mine shut down in 1988, the railroad remains an important transportation link between the Mackenzie River waterway and the rest of Canada.

In the 1950s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), a vast series of dams, tunnels and reservoirs designed to move 150 km (120,000,000 acre⋅ft) of water from northern Canada to southern Canada, the western United States and Mexico. The system would involve building massive dams on the Liard, Mackenzie, Peace, Columbia, and Fraser river systems and pumping water into a 650 km (400 mi) long reservoir in the Rocky Mountain Trench. The water would then flow by gravity to irrigate more than 220,000 km (85,000 sq mi) in the three countries and generate more than 50,000 MW of surplus energy. The projects were never built due to the massive cost and environmental impact.

The Royal Canadian Mint honoured the 200th anniversary of the naming of the Mackenzie River with the issue of a silver commemorative dollar in 1989.

In 1997, a cultural landscape along the section of the Mackenzie River at Tsiigehtchic was designated the Nagwichoonjik (Mackenzie River) National Historic Site of Canada due to its cultural, social and spiritual significance to the Gwichya Gwich'in.

In 2008, Canadian and Japanese researchers extracted a constant stream of natural gas from a test project at the Mallik methane hydrate field in the Mackenzie Delta. This was the second such drilling at Mallik: the first took place in 2002 and used heat to release methane. In the 2008 experiment, researchers were able to extract gas by lowering the pressure, without heating, requiring significantly less energy. The Mallik gas hydrate field was first discovered by Imperial Oil in 1971–1972.
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