Two decades ago ago a tiny group of volunteers worked to preserve a "grease trail" between British Columbia's Fraser River and the Pacific Ocean. The term "grease" commemorates prehistoric trade in oil from the little euhlican fish of the coastal rivers. It was packed like butter in cedar boxes and carried over the mountains. This overland moccasin trail is also the final 350 kilometres of the first recorded crossing of continental North America.

Today it is a designated British Columbia Heritage Site, and is officially known as the Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail. It is also known locally as the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail. The first European to follow this 4,000 year old route to the Pacific was Alexander Mackenzie, a young Scottish partner in the North West Company of Montreal, who was in charge of an exploration crew of French Canadian voyageurs and local Native guides. They were looking for the fabled Northwest Passage.

In the cause of Canadian unity, the original heritage conservation group established the Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route Association (AMVRA). The Association set out to link the famous North West Company's Route of the Voyageurs ~ from Montreal, Quebec to Fort Chipewyan, Alberta ~ with Mackenzie's 1792-1793 expedition to the Pacific. Our theme, Canada Sea to Sea, was taken from Canada's Coat of Arms (A Mari Usque Ad Mare ~ "From Sea to Sea").

First, we convinced each of the six en route provinces ~ Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia ~ to issue formal Proclamations to establish the Route location between each provincial border and the next. On Heritage Day, 1995 the Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien, issued the official federal Proclamation confirming the existence of the "Sea to Sea" Route and the reasons Canadians should celebrate and protect this heritage.

The final reward came when the Northwest Territories proclaimed the Route down the Mackenzie River, making the entire trail truly a 'Sea to Sea to Sea' national heritage entity.

In 1989, AMVRA's 200 members also agreed to partner with Lakehead University for their four-summer Mackenzie Bicentennial Canoe Expeditions, in which student voyageurs, guided by Mackenzie's 1801 journals, would paddle over 10,000 kilometres to retrace all of Mackenzie's cross-Canada 1789-1793 explorations. The students, in full historic regalia, arrived July 22nd, 1993 at Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Park on the Pacific to share with 400 visitors and 45 ships the dramatic "First Crossing" Bicentennial ceremonies. Lakehead's expeditions, aided by the federally-sponsored Stay in School program, demonstrated to thousands of Canadians en route, young and old, Canada's unique inheritance ~Native, French, Scottish and English.