Mackenzie River

River system, Northwest Territories, Canada.

It flows northward from Great Slave Lake into the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean. Its basin, with an area of 697,000 sq mi (1,805,200 sq km), is the largest in Canada. It is 1,025 mi (1,650 km) long and 1–2 mi (1.5–3 km) wide. With the Finlay River, its farthest headstream, the entire system is 2,635 mi (4,241 km) long, making it the second longest river in North America. It was discovered by the explorer Alexander Mackenzie in 1789.

* * *

▪ river, Australia

      seasonal tributary of the Fitzroy River, eastern Queensland, Australia. Formed by the junction of the Comet and Nogoa rivers, which rise in the Eastern Highlands, it flows for 170 miles (275 km) past Comet, northeast across the Expedition Range, and then southeast, joining the Dawson River to form the Fitzroy River. Its principal tributary is the Isaac. Explored in 1844 by Ludwig Leichhardt, it was named after Sir Evan Mackenzie, a Queensland settler. Its valley supports dairy and beef cattle.

▪ river, Canada

Introduction

 major river system in the drainage pattern of northwestern North America. Its basin is the largest in Canada, and it is exceeded on the continent only by the Mississippi-Missouri system. The Mackenzie system drains an area of some 697,000 square miles (1,805,200 square kilometres), which is almost as large as Mexico. From the headwaters of the Finlay River, which flows into Williston Lake (the impounded waters of the Peace River) west of the Rocky Mountains, the entire river system runs for 2,635 miles (4,241 kilometres) through the lake-strewn Canadian north to empty into the cold and often-frozen waters of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean. The Mackenzie itself is 1,025 miles long, according to the conventional measurement from Great Slave Lake. The river is generally wide, mostly from 1 to 2 miles across, and in island-dotted sections, 3 to 4 miles wide. It has a strong flow. Its lake-covered triangular delta measures more than 120 miles from north to south and is about 50 miles wide along the Arctic shore.

      The headwaters of the system include several large rivers, which themselves drain vast forested plains of northeastern British Columbia and northern Alberta. These drainage basins include the Liard River (about 107,000 square miles), the Peace River (116,800 square miles), and the Athabasca River (36,800 square miles). Much shorter rivers flow into the system from the east, draining the low rocky hills of the ancient structural mass known as the Canadian Shield. The system also includes the huge Great Slave Lake (11,030 square miles), Great Bear Lake (12,100 square miles), and the smaller Lake Athabasca (3,060 square miles).

      The whole region is subject to a harsh winter climate, and its resources are few and less accessible than those of southern Canada. Yet it is one of the few great unspoiled areas of the world, offering a varied wildlife and spectacular scenery.

Physical features

      The Mackenzie River itself begins at the western end of Great Slave Lake, at 512 feet (156 metres) above sea level. Deep (more than 2,000 feet in some places), clear water fills the lake's eastern arm, and shallow, murky water is found in the western part. Because of its large size and the extent of its winter ice cover, Great Slave Lake is the last part of the Mackenzie waterway to be free of ice in the spring, with some ice remaining until mid-June in the lake's centre.

      The ice on the Mackenzie River begins to break up in early to mid-May in its southern section, being preceded by breakup on the Liard River. Tributary rivers are free of ice before the Mackenzie itself, and high water and flooding are common during the breakup period, particularly when ice dams form. The ice across the lower Mackenzie River breaks up in late May; the channels in the Mackenzie River delta are usually free of floating river ice by the end of May or early June, with the western channels being influenced by the earlier breakup of the Peel River. Sea ice usually remains offshore from the delta in the Beaufort Sea during June, particularly if prevailing winds are onshore.

The upper course

      The head of the Mackenzie River is about six miles wide where the western end of the Great Slave Lake narrows and is filled by one large island and several small ones. The river narrows to less than a half mile in width near Fort Providence, and it is there that ice bridges are built across the river in early winter to carry truck traffic along the branch of the Mackenzie Highway that reaches Yellowknife on the northern arm of the Great Slave Lake. Ferries are used for this crossing in summer, but all road traffic ceases during the breakup period in May. Branch roads extend to Fort Simpson and Fort Liard; except for a winter trail that is used only occasionally, there are no through roads farther north along the Mackenzie River valley. Mills Lake is a shallow broadening of the Mackenzie River west of the village of Fort Providence. To the west the river again narrows to about a mile in width, and the current is fast at Green Island Rapids, about 12 miles east of Fort Simpson. There is, however, a channel among the boulders in these rapids that is deep enough for the flat-bottomed barges pushed by shallow-draft tugs that operate out of the southern Great Slave Lake terminal of the town of Hay River and along the Mackenzie.

      At Fort Simpson the Liard River (693 miles long) joins the Mackenzie from the west from its source in the southeastern Yukon Territory. The contrast between the muddy, silt-laden water of the Liard and the clear water of the Mackenzie is sharply apparent in the river after the junction, as these “two rivers in one” remain separate in terms of certain physical properties for about 300 miles downstream. At Fort Simpson, as for much of its course, the Mackenzie flows between steep, gray gravel banks, 100 to 200 feet high, which obscure the view of the adjacent lowlands from the river.

      Along most of its course, the Mackenzie flows through the Mackenzie Lowlands region, which is about 250 miles wide near Fort Simpson. Although it is classed as forested—mainly with a few species of coniferous trees, such as black and white spruce, and some balsam poplar—much of the region away from the tributary rivers is covered by swamps, muskegs (bogs), and lakes, as well as many open areas of grassy vegetation and low bushes. The Mackenzie Mountains rise steeply on the western side of the Mackenzie valley to altitudes of 5,000 to 6,000 feet; since the tree line is at about 3,000 feet, the upper slopes are barren. The eastern edge of the Mackenzie Lowlands is formed by ancient hills of the Canadian Shield, which slope up to altitudes of about 1,000 feet.

      The Mackenzie Lowlands are underlain by flat-lying sedimentary rock of the Cretaceous (i.e., about 100 million years old) and Devonian (about 400 million years old) periods. Little of this rock is exposed at the surface, however, because it is mantled with glacial and alluvial deposition of clays, sands, and gravels.

      North of Fort Simpson the Mackenzie River is a little less than 400 feet above sea level, is a mile wide, and flows between steep banks. The mean annual discharge is measured at 239,000 cubic feet (6,760 cubic metres) per second at Fort Simpson; the average monthly flow at high water during the summer (May to October) is more than 365,000 cubic feet per second, and this seems to derive equally from the Liard and upper Mackenzie. The latter supplies a larger share of the river's volume during winter.

The lower course

      North of the trading post at Wrigley, the Redstone and Keele rivers enter from the west; they have deep canyons where they break out of the Mackenzie Mountains but flow across the lowland as shallow, braided streams. These rivers and the others that drain from the Mackenzie Mountains have their peak flows in June after the snow melts in the mountains and become shallow rivers in late summer. The Mackenzie River picks up relatively little volume within its valley lowland, as the average summer precipitation recorded at dispersed settlements is only about 7 or 8 inches (175 to 200 millimetres); total annual precipitation throughout the Mackenzie valley is 10 to 14 inches.

      At the village of Fort Norman the cold, clear water of the Great Bear River enters from the east. This short river empties out of Great Bear Lake and is navigable for shallow-draft vessels, except for a short portage around rapids about 30 miles east of its mouth. Once more, there is a distinct summer demarcation for 50 miles northward in the Mackenzie River between its silt-laden water and the clear water from the Great Bear River on the eastern bank. At Norman Wells the Mackenzie River broadens to about 4 miles in width and is less than 175 feet above sea level. The mean annual discharge of the river there is 302,000 cubic feet per second, but flows during the summer months usually will average 460,000 cubic feet per second.

      The Mackenzie Lowland is only about 30 miles wide in this section, being broken by the treeless summits of the Franklin Mountains, which rise to altitudes of little more than 3,000 feet on the east side of the river. Small lakes are not so common across the Mackenzie valley in this area as they are on the lowland west of Great Slave Lake. Forest vegetation is scanty except in the river valleys and in areas of better drainage; most of the trees are stunted spruce.

      Where the Mountain River joins the Mackenzie from the west there is a fast-water section known as Sans Sault Rapids; the river drops about 20 feet within a few miles. There is ample depth of water for the shallow-draft barges during July, but, despite deepening of the channel by rock blasting, shallow water is sometimes a navigation problem in late summer. South of the Indian village of Fort Good Hope, the Mackenzie narrows as it flows between 100- to 150-foot perpendicular limestone cliffs known as The Ramparts. North of Fort Good Hope, the Mackenzie crosses the Arctic Circle. It is slightly entrenched and meanders across its flat valley floor, its banks being two to three miles apart; low islands are numerous, and shifting sandbars are a problem for the riverboats. Where the Arctic Red River enters from the south, the Mackenzie again flows between steep rock walls, which rise about 100 to 200 feet directly from the water.

The delta region

 The Mackenzie River delta begins at Point Separation. The mean annual discharge of Mackenzie water into the delta, measured at the confluence of the Arctic Red River, is 340,000 cubic feet per second, increasing to an average of 540,000 cubic feet per second in summer. From the south the 425-mile Peel River is the last major tributary of the Mackenzie, although it actually flows into the Mackenzie delta to the west of Point Separation. The delta covers about 4,700 square miles and is a maze of branching, intertwining channels, numerous cutoff lakes, and circular ponds. These lakes are an excellent habitat for muskrat, and the trapping of these animals became the main source of income for the Indian and Eskimo inhabitants of the delta in the period 1920–60.

      The perpetually frozen subsurface known as permafrost lies a few feet beneath the surface of the islands in the delta and exists discontinuously beneath the entire Mackenzie Lowlands north of Great Slave Lake. Depending on the type of vegetation cover, the top few inches to several feet of ground above the permafrost thaws during the summer months. Northern construction of airfields, roads, and pipelines has to be adapted to these permafrost conditions; houses and other buildings are usually placed on wooden piles that are sunk and frozen into the permafrost for stability. One of the distinctive features of the town of Inuvik is a utilidor, a linear boxlike metal container raised slightly above the surface of the ground, in which the separate sewer, water, and heating pipes are placed. Mackenzie River water-transport routes terminate at Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic coast northeast of the delta; there cargo is transferred to other vessels of greater draft, which serve the small settlements, radar stations, and oil-exploration sites along the western Arctic coast.

The people and economy

      The Mackenzie River basin is sparsely populated. Its natural resources are few, and they are less accessible than comparable resources in southern Canada. Fur-bearing animals were the resource attraction of the 19th century; although they are still trapped throughout the forests of the river basin, particularly by the Indian population, furs now constitute a minor element in the regional economy. Muskrat, marten, beaver, lynx, and fox are the main pelts sought. The forests in the southern part of the basin have been utilized locally for lumber and pulpwood in the Peace River area. The small conifer trees have future value as a source of pulpwood.

      Agricultural land is developed only in the south, particularly in the Peace River area. Settlers moved into the Athabasca River, Lesser Slave Lake, and Peace River areas in large numbers after 1920, when the farmlands of the Canadian prairies were almost all occupied. When railroad connections were established southward to Edmonton, these farms were able to produce grain, livestock, and legume seed for external markets. A few farms and many gardens produced well along the Mackenzie River before 1940, but the improved transport since World War II has permitted most food to be imported. With July mean temperatures averaging about 60 °F (16 °C) and daily temperatures reaching only into the 70s and sometimes 80s (i.e., between about 21 and 29 °C), climate does not prevent the growth of certain crops.

      Minerals—particularly oil and natural gas—are the economic basis of some of the larger settlements in the basin. The first oil field was discovered at Norman Wells in 1921, but production did not begin until the 1930s. A small refinery at Norman Wells produces petroleum products for the industries, transport, and homes of the northern parts of the Mackenzie River valley, and the oil field there was enlarged in the 1980s and connected by a pipeline to Alberta. Other oil and natural gas fields have been discovered near the Mackenzie delta and offshore in the Beaufort Sea. The largest fields are in the southern parts of the river basin, in northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. The oil and gas from them also is carried southward by pipelines to be distributed from Edmonton, Alta., to refineries in southern Canada and the northern United States. An enormous reserve of petroleum lies in the Athabasca Tar Sands along the Athabasca River north of Fort McMurray; (Fort McMurray) production there was initially limited by high development costs, but it increased in the 1980s as oil fields in Alberta were depleted.

      Metallic minerals have been found along the eastern and southern edges of the basin. Valuable uranium ores were produced on the eastern shores of Great Bear Lake (1933–61) and on the northern side of Lake Athabasca (1950–80) in northwestern Saskatchewan; and the richest uranium mines yet discovered in Canada began operation in the 1980s on the southeastern side of Lake Athabasca. Gold mines are the resource base of the city of Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories. Lead and zinc mines on the southern side of Great Slave Lake were depleted by 1990; the size of these deposits had been large enough, however, to bring the first railroad into the Northwest Territories, which was built in the 1960s from the Peace River area to the town of Hay River.

      The water of the upper Mackenzie River system was too far from large industrial and urban markets to be used for hydroelectric power until the late 1960s. At that time the Peace River was dammed as it broke out of the Rocky Mountains and a large storage lake formed westward in the Rocky Mountain Trench. Electric power is transmitted south 600 miles to Vancouver, B.C. Otherwise, the only developed waterpower sites are on the Snare and Taltson rivers, which drop westward out of the Canadian Shield to the Mackenzie Lowlands and supply power to the mines and residents at Yellowknife. There is no utilization of the water of the Mackenzie River itself, except for river transportation.

      Two of the large lakes of the Mackenzie basin are sources of lake trout and whitefish. Lake Athabasca was first exploited during the 1930s, and Great Slave Lake was opened to commercial fishing after 1945. In the latter lake, fish are caught in both summer and winter and transported south by truck or rail to urban markets in both Canada and the United States. The catch is controlled by seasonal quotas that prevent depletion of the species. The cold water of Great Bear Lake has some fish, but they grow too slowly to sustain anything but sport fishing. Fish of the Mackenzie River are netted by some local residents to supplement their imported food.

History

      Explorers (European exploration) and fur traders pushed westward across Canada in the late 18th century to the headwaters of rivers that flowed into Hudson Bay, seeking to tap the fur resources in the lands beyond. In 1778 one of them, Peter Pond, found Portage La Loche (Methy Portage) connecting the headwaters of Churchill River with the Clearwater River, itself one of the east-bank tributaries of the Athabasca River. In 1789 Alexander Mackenzie (Mackenzie, Sir Alexander) made his historic journey northward from the trading post of Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca, exploring, with a crew of 12 in three canoes, the full length of the river that now bears his name.

      Other fur traders of the North West Company followed early in the 19th century, establishing posts at several sites along the river and on its headwater tributaries. From the mid-1820s, supplies were carried in by the distinctive York boats, shallow-draft vessels with a sharply angled stern and bow. In 1884 the first steamer began to operate northward from Fort McMurray, at the junction of the Clearwater and Athabasca rivers (Athabasca River), to Fitzgerald on the Slave River. At this point there are 16 miles of rapids in Slave River, the only break in 1,700 miles of shallow-draft river navigation from Fort McMurray to the Arctic Ocean. In 1886 the first steamer began operating north of Fort Smith—on the present border between the Northwest Territories and Alberta—taking supplies to the Mackenzie River trading posts and bringing out bales of fur. During the period 1920–1940, flat-bottomed stern-wheelers operated on the Mackenzie, but they were replaced after 1945 by small diesel tugs that could push several barges.

J. Lewis Robinson

Additional Reading

Mackenzie River Basin Committee (Canada), Mackenzie River Basin Study Report (1981), examines the development of water and related resources. Environmental aspects are treated in Thomas R. Berger, Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, rev. ed. (1988), which also includes a survey of the Native American population of the area. James K. Smith, The Mackenzie River: Yesterday's Fur Frontier, Tomorrow's Energy Battleground (1977), surveys the economic history of the Mackenzie River valley. Robin Minion (compiler), Communities and Towns of the Northwest Territories (1985), looks at the modern situation. T. Fenge et al., Land Use Programs in Canada: Northwest Territories (1979), is also worth consulting.J. Lewis Robinson

* * *