The Fur Trade
The Athabasca Portage was once a vital link in a major fur trade route which stretched from the St. Lawrence River, and later from Hudson’s Bay, to the Pacific Ocean.
Here the Athabasca Portage, a fur trading route over the Rockies, left the Athabasca River and followed the Whirlpool River upward to the Athabasca Pass. In the winter of 1810-11, David Thompson of the North West Company led the first fur trade brigade this way after Peigan Indians blocked his access to the more southerly Howse Pass. Until the mid-1850s the Athabasca Portage was regularly used to transport company furs, trade goods and mail, by horseback and foot.
George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company after its merge with the North West Company, crossed the portage in 1824. Upon reaching a small lake at the summit of the Great Divide, he and his men toasted the London Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company, naming the lake in their honour. Today, the lake is still known as the Committee's Punch Bowl. There, brigades from the west exchanged furs for trade goods with their partners from the east. Business was conducted and friendships were renewed.