Methye Portage
It was reached by Peter Pond in 1778 and abandoned in 1883 when steamboats began running on the Athabasca River with links to the railroad.
The portage was in constant use until 1883 when the Canadian Pacific Railway reached Calgary ending more than 100 years as the main access to the north.
[6]: 705 It also allowed for the spread of smallpox to previously untouched indigenous populations, decimating them in a matter of years.
[8] After the first Oblates opened a mission in Île-à-la-Crosse in 1846 [9] a Catholic priest was usually present when the brigades arrived at the portage.
"We stayed at this mission, Father Émile Grouard and myself until the departure of the Mackenzie brigade, that is twelve days.
It was in this improvised little temple that I had the joy of singing High Mass on the Sunday after our arrival, and to celebrate the holy mysteries each day in front of more than three hundred and fifty people, both Métis and indigenous.
[13] Another noted baptism at Methye Portage was Francois Beaulieu who was baptised in 1848 by Bishop Alexandre-Antonin Taché.
[14] The trade route began on Lake Winnipeg and ran west up the Saskatchewan River to Cumberland House, Saskatchewan, north up the Sturgeon-Weir River, across Frog Portage to the Churchill River, west up the Churchill past the depot on Lac Île-à-la-Crosse, through Peter Pond Lake to Lac La Loche.
The portage proper, which is 19 km (12 mi) long, began at Wallis Bay on the north side of Lac La Loche.
Dene residents from the surrounding area were camped at the portage in a tipi village of 150 people.
[18] The Hudson's Bay Company had 10 employees at the fort who maintained the transportation depots at each end of the portage and brought in horses, oxen and carts for the season.
Petitot wrote "While there were no more than 400 people gathered at the time on the south side of the portage they gave us a little understanding of the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel.
Along the Portage Trail there were marked graves from the fur trade era according to the following Oblate account written in 1933 by Father Louis Moraud.
The English version is quoted: "In 1778 Peter Pond became the first white man to cross the 12 mile portage between Lac La Loche and the Clearwater River, thus opening the rich Athabasca region to direct trade.
For over forty years, until the opening of the Edmonton-Fort Assiniboine trail, this portage was the only practical link with the Athabasca and the Peace and Mackenzie rivers beyond.
