The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route: A Community Perspective on Waterways and the Development of a Trans-Canada Heritage Route
A Natural Context

In the beginning, when God created the universe the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the power of God was moving over the water. Then God commanded "Let there be light" ~ and light appeared. God was pleased with what he saw. Then he separated the light from the darkness, and he named the light "Day" and the darkness "Night." Evening passed and morning came ~ that was the first day.

Then God commanded, "Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places" - and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it. He named the dome "Sky." Evening came and morning passed and that was the second day... (Genesis 1:1-8).

... Skywoman, who was expecting a child, looked down from skyworld and as far as she could see there was glistening blue water. She leaned further over the hole where the great tree had been uprooted as she had seen it in her dream, gripping tightly to a branch for balance ~ the branch broke and Skywoman tumbled downward. Two swans saw her falling, caught her and saw that there was no place to set her down. As the swimming and flying animals gathered around to see this new visitor, they decided they should make some land to support her, so turtle sent different swimming animals one at a time to the bottom of the water to bring up some earth. Each one failed - the duck, beaver and loon - as the water was too deep, until finally tiny muskrat, floating to the surface let his tiny paw open on turtles back, spilling out a pawful of earth. The earth grew and grew, and when the swans lowered Skywoman to the turtle's back her hand fell open spilling seeds from the branch of the great tree. That is how the first land was formed.

... The Earth is thought to be about 4.6 billion years old (Selby, 1985, p. 4), with the vast granite platform of the Canadian Shield dating to the "Archean Era" 2.5 billion years ago (Bird, 1972, p. 6). For billions of years, more rock and sediment was laid down over this crustal base, and small sea creatures and plants settled to fossilize in the forming rock. The end of this "Pre-Cambrian" era marked the end of major crustal formation (Bird, 1972, p.10), but in a world now largely dominated by water, the 'structure' of the planet's surface was just taking shape.

Three hundred millions years ago, simple life (plant and animal) thrived, water and land rose and fell and continental plates shifted to present a new view of an Earth dominated still by water, but showing consolidated form (Bird, 1972, p. 16). Only in the most recent 150 - 200 million years have ocean basins and exposed plains been formed, with most landforms appearing in much more recent history (Selby, 1985, p. 4). The thin 'outer crust' folding, rising and shifting gave rise to mountains, basins and underwater ridges, setting the stage for the development of drainage patterns and rivers which are evident today.

As the seas withdrew from what is now seen as Canada's western prairies, early rivers flowed east-west, only to be later 'captured' by the deepening north-south valleys of the Mackenzie and Mississippi systems (Bird, 1972, p.18). The arrival of the Quaternary period 1.8 - 2.5 million years ago, however, signalled the crucial period of visible landform change in Canada, as described by Bird:

In this final period of the earth's history [the Quaternary], the dual cataclysms of the Pleistocene glaciations and the arrival of man ~ Indian, Eskimo and European ~ have modified the physical landscape at a rate that can barely be equalled in the more remote geological past (1972, p. xv).

While earlier processes of heat and movement gave Canada its form, it is water that gives it its appearance. The imprint of glacial ice on the Canadian landscape is inescapable, with the most recent glaciation occurring some 6,000 years ago (Bird, 1972, p. 22). Still living in an Ice Age today, the effects of four glaciations during which the Laurentide Ice Sheet extended from the Arctic to the Great Lakes (Bird, 1972, p. 29) have sculpted the face of the country. The great weight of ice two miles thick depressed the land (which is still slowly springing back), and on its retreat scraped and carved the land, depositing rock and soil which changed the physical and biotic make-up of the region. Rivers and river valleys were altered or created by the glacial retreat, and the familiar landscape of present-day Canada emerged.

River patterns resulted from glacial land change, and rivers themselves are perhaps second only to glaciation in their ability to continually change the face of the land through which they flow (Bird, 1972, p. 3). Canada is a country of great diversity, with an area of nearly 3.5 million square miles (Bird, 1972, p. 1) and nearly half the fresh water in the world (Franks, 1977, p. 6). Canada today contains six fairly distinct physical regions, including the Arctic Islands, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Appalachian Region, the Interior Plains, the Cordilleran Region and, at the heart of Canada, the Canadian Shield, the Pre-Cambrian rock base which makes up nearly 50 percent of the country (Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1988, C-4).

A legacy of rock and water was left by the glaciers. Massive lakes were formed and drained by massive rivers, and later humans came to walk beside these rivers and even ride upon them in canoes fashioned from the trees of the land. This coming of the first people to the water was the beginning of a new chapter and volume in an ongoing story. The physical evolution of waterways in Canada continues, but the rate of natural physical change is dwarfed by the physical and cultural effect of humans in the past ten thousand years. The inclusion of human experience transfers the story of rivers from a listing of probable events to an unfolding cultural narrative which defines the relationship between the natural and human world.

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