John Finlay (c. 1774 – December 19, 1833) was a fur trader and explorer with the North West Company.
Finlay was apprenticed as a clerk in the North West Company in 1789 at the age of 15.
He accompanied Alexander Mackenzie on his historic trip across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean in 1792-93 becoming, with him, the first European to traverse North America.
This was the first European community established in present-day British Columbia and is the province's oldest continuously inhabited European-founded settlement.
Indeed, Black's journal makes clear that the northern branch, far from being less complicated, was all but impassable in many parts, perhaps explaining Finlay's reluctance to travel more than about one-quarter of the river's actual length.