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

Long trails...are significant cultural creations, which reflect our visions of nature, our success in managing it, our hopes and doubts about the future and our pride in the past (Birch, 1979, p. 9).

The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route represents a cross section of rivers and lakes with valuable regional ties and strong links to a shared Canadian history. Canadian rivers, and the AMVR must be preserved, not only as valuable ecological systems, but as strands of continuity which connect the country ~ physically, culturally and intellectually ~ thereby providing a sense of the past. The need for such preservation is emphasised by Northrop Frye:

What kind of people we are is perhaps determined, and certainly conditioned by what we realize of our past, and sharpening our sense of the past is the only way of meeting the future. Preserving our heritage is a central part of that realization and that sharpened sense (1982, p.174).

Preservation, in the sense of protecting for the future, is also confronting the realization that the compartmentalizing of natural and cultural resources can be a failed effort in the face of evolving land use and resource demands from fishing, forestry and mineral extraction to recreation and tourism. It is important that resources are recognized, acknowledged and understood, to encourage cooperative stewardship.

"Stewardship", therefore involves much more than defining a resource and assuming the role of caretaker. True stewardship requires a recognition of the many heritage values of a resource, and it attempts to satisfy the needs of a variety of individuals without sacrificing the resource itself. The 'old style' of preservation which included government land acquisition and park designation can no longer meet all the needs of the land or the individual (Hilts in Hummel, 1989, p. 100). Stewardship, then, becomes a personal responsibility. Unfortunately, such a role is still not well understood because the heritage for which we are stewards is defined within an individual context and is constantly evolving.

In assessing stewardship of the Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route, or "who should take care of this resource", it is useful to look at the history of the Route as a magnificent book with several volumes, each representing a different topic, and each telling a story, chapter by chapter through time ~ leading to the present, where the book does not end, but is continually being written. Each chapter represents a new era in this history, and the story line begins to really pick up with the late chapter titled "Footprints on the Shore". How to care for this book and ensure that it is well read and the writing of it continues is a tenuous question. Perhaps an illustration of what not to do will help.

Once upon a time there was a young boy who loved books. One day when he was shopping with his mother, he saw a wonderful book sitting in a store window ~ it had a colourful cover, was just the right size, had beautiful pictures, and the text was big and easy to read. Most of all though, he liked the story... it started with once upon a time, ended with happily ever after, and left plenty of room for imagination in between. After some careful prodding, his mother bought him the book and as soon as he got home he ran to HIS room to read HIS new book. His brother wanted to read it too, but he would not let him, it was HIS book. His mother wanted to show the book to a friend, but he would hear nothing of it, after all it was HIS book, even though it was his mother who made it possible for him to have the book, and his brother who helped him learn to read. He put the book away in a box, locked the lid and hid it under his bed so no one could read it. Soon after he lost the key, and the book still sits there, in the box in its colourful, literary beauty ~ the only problem is that no one can read it, not even the boy.

Just as a good book is more than a collection of ink, words and pictures, the Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route is more than a collection of rivers, lakes and streams. The story is as important as the content, but in order to ensure that the story is told, understood and appreciated, it is critical not to put it in a box and store it under the bed, although it is there that it may seem most secure.

The Alexander Mackenzie Voyageur Route was first recorded as a means of crossing a continent for trade and commerce, representing a culturally defining period in Canadian history ~ the meeting of distinct cultures. Recognition of the Route not only provides an opportunity for re-kindling cultural alliances within Canada, it provides the opportunity to examine our use of our waterways and develop new strategies for "equitable, culturally appropriate sustainable development" (p. 94) as noted by George Erasmus in Endangered Spaces.

There is a need for communities to turn and face the river ~ physically and intellectually, so that the river will once again become a central focus ~ as it was when the community was formed. In "facing the river", communities will profit, not only by better knowing themselves, but in seeing and understanding their place in a larger story and finding opportunities for sharing that story with others.