The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route: A Community Perspective on Waterways and the Development of a Trans-Canada Heritage Route
The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route has both local and national heritage significance, and further development of the Route will benefit communities through which it passes and the Nation as a whole.

Selective, locally controlled development of the Route by communities will help support local initiatives for increasing recreation and tourism use of the Route, while protecting natural and cultural heritage resources. Communities can benefit through involvement with the Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route through:

• increasing heritage awareness;
• promoting the sharing of culture;
• establishing innovative and creative partnerships between individuals, organisations and communities;
• developing a greater awareness of regional heritage resources and their links to those in Canada as a whole;
• involving more individuals in heritage matters, encouraging personal stewardship;
• initiating responsible and sustainable tourism and recreation use of the Route and adjacent waterways, supporting economic growth and diversification.

"A nation", wrote Edmund Burke, "is a partnership of the dead, the living and the unborn. We are the living, and the responsibility is ours to preserve this nation and to fulfil our duty to the partnership" (in Legget, 1975, p. 97). The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route reflects the local and national heritage significance of the inland waterways of Canada. Carefully managed promotion of the Route through community based identification, education and selective development for recreation and tourism will benefit communities through which it passes, and in doing so create an atmosphere of co-operative stewardship, benefiting the Nation as a whole.

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