The Mackenzie River is a river in the Canadian boreal forest. It forms, along with the Slave, Peace, and Finlay, the longest river system in Canada, and includes the second largest drainage basin of any North American river after the Mississippi.
The Sahtú or North Slavey are a Dene First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group living in the vicinity of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada. The Sahtú peoples live in Colville Lake, Deline, Fort Good Hope, Norman Wells and Tulita which form the Sahtu Region of the NWT. The Dene of the region are represented by the Sahtu Dene Council who, in 1993, signed the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement. Sahtú groups include the Hare Dene, Bear Lake Dene, and Mountain Dene. They call themselves also Ɂehdzo Got’ı̨ne.
Fort Smith is a town in the South Slave Region of the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada. It is located in the southeastern portion of the Northwest Territories, on the Slave River and adjacent to the Alberta border along the 60th parallel north.
The Slave River is a Canadian river that flows from the confluence of the Rivière des Rochers and Peace River in northeastern Alberta and runs into Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. The river's name is thought to derive from the name for the Slavey group of the Dene First Nations, Deh Gah Gotʼine, in the Athabaskan languages. The Chipewyan had displaced other native people from this region.
The Radium King was built in 1937 to haul ore on the Mackenzie River, and her tributaries. This included uranium used in the US atom bombs of World War II. Later in her active career she hauled barges on Great Slave Lake.
The Northern Life Museum is in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada. The museum has a collection of over 13,000 artifacts representing the peoples and history of the North. Many of the artifacts were collected by the Oblate Fathers and the Grey Nuns during their missionary work in the North.
Gilbert A. LaBine, was a Canadian prospector who, in 1930, discovered radium and uranium deposits at Port Radium, Northwest Territories. LaBine was president of Eldorado Gold Mines from its start in the late 1920s to 1947. He left the company, which had become a Crown corporation in 1944, to prospect for uranium minerals as an independent mine developer. In the 1950s he brought the Gunnar Mine to production at Uranium City, Saskatchewan.
The Yellowknife River is a river in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It flows south and empties into Yellowknife Bay, part of Great Slave Lake, at the city of Yellowknife. The lake is drained by the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean as part of the largest drainage basin in Canada. The name of the river derives from the Yellowknives Dene, a First Nations people who have lived in the area for thousands of years.
The Yellowknife Highway, officially Northwest Territories Highway 3 and also known as the Great Slave Highway, is a highway connecting Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, to the Mackenzie Highway, from a junction 188 km (117 mi) north of the Alberta border. First completed in 1960 as a gravel and dirt road, the highway is now paved and realigned after years of work concluded in 2006. Access to Yellowknife prior to the opening of the Yellowknife Highway was possible only by airplane, winter road, or boat across Great Slave Lake.
The Mackenzie River in Canada's Northwest Territories is a historic waterway, used for centuries by Indigenous peoples, specifically the Dene, as a travel and hunting corridor. Also known as the Deh Cho, it is part of a larger watershed that includes the Slave, Athabasca, and Peace rivers extending from northern Alberta. In the 1780s, Peter Pond, a trader with the North West Company became the first known European to visit this watershed and begin viable trade with the Athapascan-speaking Dene of these rivers. The Mackenzie River itself, the great waterway extending to the Arctic Ocean, was first put on European maps by Alexander Mackenzie in 1789, the Scottish trader who explored the river. The watershed thus became a vital part of the North American fur trade, and before the advent of the airplane or road networks, the river was the only communication link between northern trading posts and the south. Water travel increased in the late 19th century as traders, dominated primarily by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), looked to increase water services in the Mackenzie River District.
Marine Transportation Services (MTS) formerly Northern Transportation Company Limited (NTCL) is a marine transportation company operating primarily in the Mackenzie River watershed of the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta, and the Arctic Ocean using a fleet of diesel tug boats and shallow-draft barges. NTCL filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and its assets were acquired by the Government of the Northwest Territories later that year.
The Charter Community of Délı̨nę is located in the Sahtu Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, on the western shore of Great Bear Lake and is 544 km (338 mi) northwest of Yellowknife. Délı̨nę means "where the waters flow", a reference to the headwaters of the Great Bear River, Sahtúdé. It is the only settlement on the shores of Great Bear Lake as Fort Confidence was last used in the 1800s and Port Radium closed in 1982.
Waterways is a locality within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. It is now a neighbourhood within the Fort McMurray urban service area along the west bank of the Clearwater River, south of the river's confluence with the Athabasca River.
The Radium Queen and her sister ship the Radium King were built in Sorel, Quebec in 1937, for the Northern Transportation Company, a subsidiary of Eldorado Gold Mines. The Radium Queen was a cargo/tug ship that served on the Slave River. It made runs between Lake Athabaska and Great Slave Lake which is generally navigable. The Radium Queen towed barges from the railhead at Waterways, Alberta to a portage around the rapids. Cargo was unloaded there and transported by land, and loaded on barges on the lower river that were towed by the Radium King, and later by other tugboats, like the Radium Charles, Radium Express and Radium Yellowknife.
The Radium Express is a Russel Brothers tugboat operated by the Northern Transportation Company. The vessel was built in Owen Sound, Ontario, disassembled, and then shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta, which was then the terminus of the North American railway grid.
Radium Mine is a painting made by Canadian artist A.Y. Jackson when he visited the mine-site of the isolated Radium mine at Port Radium, Northwest Territories, in 1938. Jackson was a friend of prospector Gilbert LaBine, then the mine manager, and flew to the site with him.
The Radium Cruiser was a Russel Brothers tugboat operated on the Mackenzie River system for the "Radium Line". She was constructed in Owen Sound, Ontario, in 1939, then disassembled and shipped by rail to Waterways, Alberta. Waterways is a river port, and was then the northern terminus of the North American railway grid. Waterways is on the Clearwater River, not far upstream from where the river empties into Lake Athabasca. The waters of Lake Athabasca flow into Great Slave Lake down the Slave River, and then down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean.
The Radium Gilbert was a tugboat built for transporting supplies to, and ore from, the radium and uranium mines in Canada's Northwest Territories. Like the other tugs in the Radium Line she was steel-hulled.
The Radium Prospector was a tugboat operated by the Northern Transportation Company's "Radium Line", on the tributaries of the Mackenzie River in Canada. She was launched in 1956. Many of her sister ships also included "Radium" in their name, hence the appellation "Radium line".
Radium Franklin was a tugboat built in 1951, and operated by the Northern Transportation Company - popularly known as the "Radium Line", because many of their tugboats contained Radium in their name, since they were originally built to haul Uranium ore from Port Radium, on Great Bear Lake. She was retired in 1979, after spending most of her career hauling barge packed with ore, and then briefly serving as a yard tug.
