History and accessibility
First Nations have traditionally always travelled the northern Trench. There are several post-European contact travels up the northern Trench - often of large proportion. The Trench here remains mostly wild, and the northern 300 km (190 mi) is essentially without roads, excepting a few cat trails for fire, outfitters, or logging. It is due to several turns of fate,[clarification needed] and strategic administrative decisions since 1824,[clarification needed] that the most natural land transportation corridor in northern British Columbia has been left in a wild state. On many government maps produced since 1897,[clarification needed] indications of a passable trail have been published. However, with changes in the terrain caused by beaver dams or forest fires, and despite maintenance by guide-outfitters, the trail from Fox Lake north is often hard to find, or obliterated to all but indigenous and experienced Kaska natives. It may be more commonly used as an aviation route today.
The northern trench from the Highway 97 bridge on the Parsnip River has routes on both sides of Williston Lake to Fort Ware. The route up the east side cannot be followed due to the Peace Reach of the reservoir. The road traveler will use the gravel road up the west side of the Reservoir to Ware. Beyond that point the northbound traveller will only find a narrow cat guard (a cat guard is a primitive road constructed as a fire guard by heavy equipment-usually a bulldozer-to prevent the spread of a forest fire by creating a fuel free perimeter) for a few kilometres.
The Kaska Dena culture of Fort Ware and Lower Post refer to their ancestral use of the 300 km (190 mi) natural route as The Trail of The Ancient Ones. They also call it the Davie Trail honoring David Braconnier, the founding chief of the community at Ware (Fort Ware - originally called Kwadacha which the HBC named Whitewater Post)
1797 - John Finlay records the forks of the Finlay and Parsnip Rivers and ventures part way up each river. The Finlay River later comes to bear his name.
1823 to 1825 - Samuel Black was sent by the HBC north through Finlay Forks to The Fox River (Kwadacha) and returned later that season. He narrowly missed being the first white person to go all the way up the Northern Trench to the Liard River but chose not to listen to his guide - heading north westward seeking the source of the Finlay River instead. He travels far enough NW to discover the headwaters of another Trench tributary - The Turnagain River. Natives there find a marker left by Black and report it to historic Fort Halkett on the Liard River.
1831 - John Macleod of the HBC records the mouth of the Kechika River emptying out of the northern end of the Trench into the Liard near the BC-Yukon border.
1872 - Capt. William F. Butler ascends part of the Finlay River and records both the Fox River and Fox Lake to the north (Ft. Ware / Kwadacha was not yet established.)
1897 to 1898 – The Canadian government sends a police patrol under Inspector Moodie to map a possible supply route from the Peace River to the Yukon - specifically Dawson City. The patrol, assumed to have perished, eventually arrived at Fort Selkirk. They proved the viability of the route and produced a surviving map of it. (Yukon Archives)
1898 – McGregor's book The Klondike Rush Though Edmonton summarizes various sources (papers) saying up to 45 parties were reported along the route from Fox River to Sylvestre's Landing. There was also a reported drive of cattle on this route (echoed in Moodie's reports and in Kaska oral history.)
1906 – A North West Mounted Police patrol under field supervision of Inspector Constantine began the construction of the Police Trail westward from Hudson Hope and then northward up the Northern Trench from HBC's post at Fort Graham.
1907 - British Columbia Premier R. McBride intervened and asked Canada to direct the police resources to connect with the more westerly Telegraph Trail route. Under protest, the NWMP field team did so. That trail was soon abandoned due to its non-viable character. The political route departure from Fort Graham westward added 400 rugged snowy kilometres to the total distance without going any favorable ground or measurable distance closer to the north. The Davie Trail is noted to be excellent for wintering horse due to low snow accumulations.
1912 - British Columbia Magazine - prospector Bower reports Sifton Pass as the most eventual and most practicable for a railway form the Fraser River to the Yukon.
1914 - Premier McBride advocates a railway on Insp. Moodie's route according to B. Kenelly in a pamphlet 'The British Columbia Peace. Fort St John' 1936.
1926 - Whitewater Post is established by HBC. Whitewater is the translation of Kwadacha, a nearby river.
1930 to 1931 - British Columbia Department of Public Works investigates a road route over Sifton Pass.
1934 - Charles Bedaux, a noted international workplace management consultant (time and motion studies) leads and finances the Bedaux Expedition - formally known as the Bedaux Canadian Subarctic Expedition. While his advance scouts arrive at McDame Post near Good Hope Lake, the leader and entourage abandon their mission at Driftpile Creek due to fatigue, lack of horse feed, and impending winter. The controversial adventure is the subject of a 1995 Bedaux film biography titled Champagne Safari.
1942 - February a final decision was reached regarding the A, B, and C routes for a northern Highway. It will connect the North West Staging Route airfields and bypass the Northern Trench for the joint Canada-Alaska Highway Alcan Highway, alternately Alaska Highway. The three routes had been the subject of considerable economic competition between governments and communities since the Klondike Gold Rush. The A route was a Stikine option similar to Highway 37 of today. The B route favors the Trench option. The C route following the airfields east of the Rocky Mountains and then crossing to the west near the Liard River is the chosen route.
1942 - March 28 the American government initiates a highly secret survey. It was undertaken for the purpose of assessing a military railway link up the Northern Rocky Mountain Trench. It was completed on Sept 28. Nov 15 US General Somervell declines to proceed with a military railway. Canada's Major Charles presents drawings for the Northern Trench portion of a railway from Ware to Lower Post of 351.6 km (218.5 mi), $112,000,000 cost, with 17,000 personnel over 400 days. Of the 1217 total miles of proposed railway to Alaska, 530 are on Canadian soil and lie within the Northern Rocky Mountain Trench or the Tintina Trench.
1949 - US Congress Public Law 391 authorises a location survey for a railway from Prince George to Fairbanks. Prince George Board of Trade advocates the Trench route - the B route.
1950 - October, Canadian Transport Minister Lionel Chevrier advocates the 1942 route in a secret document to Federal Cabinet. A budget of $750,000,000 is presented.
1953 - Whitewater Post or Kwadacha of the HBC closes. Today the Kaska Dena Community of Fort Ware (Ware) remains as a full-time settlement.
1957 - Swedish industrial savant Axel Wenner-Gren advocates resource mega-developments for the Peace River area. Among his proposals he envisions a monorail up the Northern Trench. Some area proposals came to partial fruition but the monorail did not.
1960 to 1967 - The Government of BC declines the Northern Trench as their strategic railway choice, favoring instead a route to the west similar to the telegraph route. Part of the reason is that the Lower Finlay and Parsnip River portions of the Northern Trench would be flooded by the damming of the Peace River. Reservoir land acquisition commences. Their selected westerly rail route - the Dease Lake Extension along the A Route - has been, in part, abandoned, and in lesser part been reopened to Takla Siding for logging use.
1964 - US Congress tables the NAWAPA proposal by Parsons Engineering Group - would see flooding of the portions of the Trench as part of a continental-scale water diversion.
1971 - Sir Ranulph Fiennes descends the Trench from Kechika mouth - mostly on foot, partly solo as part of his circum-polar expedition . For this and other feats he is later recorded by Guinness Book of Records as the World's 'Greatest Living Explorer.'
1981 - 'Skook' Davidson; long time outfitter proposes a 'federal' national park in the Northern Trench.
1998 - After several years of round table discussions The British Columbia Government takes first legislative steps to establish a 'provincial' Muskwa-Kechika Management Area It covers an area considerably larger than the floor of the Trench and its immediate tributaries.
1999 - Karsten Heuer completes the final section of the Y2Y hike (Yellowstone to Yukon) at Lower Post
2000 - Extension of the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area into the Northern Trench. Much of the Northern Rocky Mountain Trench's furthest reach is within this British Columbia Protected Area. Significant exposure is given to the M-KMA in the November 2008 National Geographic Magazine as a follow-up to their partial funding of a recent expedition to Gataga Pass.
In 2009 context the Northern Trench could have, and might yet, become the preferred route for the 120-year-old concept of a Canada Alaska Railway concept. Discussions among feasibility experts still do not seem to favor the B Route despite it being lower, more direct, fewer major river crossings and considerably less snow.