Unsung
Explorer: As
a young man in the early
1800's, Slave River Métis
trader François Beaulieu
served as a guide to both
Alexander Mackenzie and
John Franklin in their exploration
of the Canadian northwest.
Fishy
Facts
Freshwater
Wolf: The
northern pike,
sport fish
of the Slave,
is a "piscivourous"
fish that
survives by
feeding aggressively
on other fish.
Witness to history, home to pelicans
and peregrines, natural border of Canada's largest
national park, the 434 kilometre Slave
River crosses the border between the
province of Alberta and the Northwest
Territories. Muddied by the vast Peace-Athabasca
delta from which it emerges, the river
drains north along the Canadian Shield
to Great Slave Lake, its steady flow
broken only once by a dramatic series
of violent rapids. Long regarded as
the gateway to the Arctic by aboriginal
hunters, the Slave is also the veteran
of a starring role in the western fur
trade of the 19th century. Today, the
Slave is a favoured destination of canoeists,
kayakers and rafters, and a magnet for
naturalists, birders and other eco-tourists.
