Asiniwaciy

Asinîwaciy, the Rocky Mountains, rise above the upper Athabasca River. Glaciers of the Columbia Icefield feed the river as it leaves the mountains and flows northeast through a valley of forests, rapids and rocky gorges. Indigenous peoples travelled, hunted and fished along this river long before the fur trade extended into the mountain country.

In 1811 the surveyor David Thompson crossed the Athabasca Pass with the guidance of Thomas, an Iroquois traveller. The crossing offered fur traders a route between the Athabasca and Columbia watersheds, over the mountains that separated the inland waterways from rivers flowing towards the Pacific. For many years the pass and the upper Athabasca formed part of the long journey between the Columbia country and the Canadian interior.