Methye Portage

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The Methye Portage or Portage La Loche, is part of an old fur-trade route across western Canada. It lies in the province of Saskatchewan, and runs 19 km overland from Wallis Bay at the north west end of Lac La Loche to the Clearwater River, crossing the Continental Divide at Rendezvous Lake as it does so. The Clearwater River eventually runs into the Athabaska and Mackenzie Rivers, and then to the Arctic Ocean. Lac La Loche feeds the Churchill River which traverses two provinces and ends in Hudson's Bay.

Although the Methye had been in use by indigenous peoples as a trade route, its discovery by European Peter Pond in 1778 opened the vast western Canadian interior to the fur trade for the first time. It also allowed for the spread of smallpox to previously untouched aboriginal populations, decimating them in a matter of years.

The Methye was also used by Sir Alexander Mackenzie on his exploratory expedition to the west coast, an expedition which reached the Pacific Ocean in 1793, fully 12 years before the more famous Lewis and Clark expedition.