Canadian Northwest: Natural Features and Fur Trade Posts.
The focus of the Canadian fur trade for a century after 1787 was west and then ever farther north. As in the previous century, chains of lakes and rivers served to transport goods, supplies and furs. The trade was the main incentive for the exploration of the major river systems in western and northern Canada to the 1840s. The banks of the North Saskatchewan River were dotted with competing posts, leap-frogging each other in their push westward. Similar scenes were enacted on the Peace, the Athabasca and the Mackenzie rivers. The Rocky Mountain barrier was never crossed easily but several passes proved to be usable for communication with the Columbia River system and the Thompson/Fraser system. Far to the northwest in the 1840s the mighty Yukon River was visited by traders in their search for furs. But communication and transportation from such distant points to supply centres in the East always remained difficult. The trade eventually developed two types of posts; trading posts and provisioning posts. Trading posts, especially those in the north, were supplied with food brought from the south. Posts along the Saskatchewan and in the area of the Red River gained particular significance as purveyors of provisions, chiefly pemmican and dried meat, from the bison herds of the prairie and parkland.
The map indicates major transportation routes in the North- west and locates some important trading posts.
