The Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail: The Great Road That Existed Before Mackenzie
Follow the history of the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail through trade, family connections and Indigenous knowledge, long before Mackenzie’s 1793 journey.
A traveller arrived on an existing road
Alexander Mackenzie did not have to invent a way through this country. In 1793, Indigenous people directed him away from the Fraser River and towards an overland route to the Pacific. He was entering a network that already connected communities, food sources and trading partners across the mountains.
The distinction changes the whole story. Put Mackenzie at the beginning and the trail becomes a line made famous by one expedition. Put the Nuxalk and Dakelh peoples at the beginning and that expedition becomes one comparatively brief episode on a much older road. The name Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail brings those connections back into view. Carrier is a widely used English name for Dakelh peoples; the communities along the route have their own histories, languages and relationships to particular places.
Sources: 1
Why carry grease across mountains?
The valuable cargo was rendered from eulachon, a small fish also called ooligan or oolichan. In the Bella Coola Valley, Nuxalk people harvested the fish and processed them into an oil-rich food that could be exchanged with people from the interior. This was a trade shaped by different environments: resources available on the coast could travel inland, while inland products moved the other way.
The Bella Coola Valley Museum describes the Nuxalk as important intermediaries in these exchanges. Canoes connected coastal settlements, and overland trails extended those relationships beyond the valley. A trail crossing forest and mountain country was therefore part of a much larger transportation system. Its value lay in the destinations and people it connected as much as in the path itself.
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A meeting place with roads in several directions
Ulkatcho First Nation’s own history describes Ulkatcho Village at Gatcho Lake as a centre for gathering and trade. Routes connected it with the Central Coast, the Fraser River and neighbouring peoples. Its Culla Culla House was standing when Mackenzie passed through, and George Dawson photographed it in 1876. The Nuxalk designs visible in that photograph record cultural connections as well as the survival of a building.
The same history explains how extended families moved between fishing, hunting and gathering places, while coming together at important seasonal sites. Travel cannot be reduced to a delivery route between two endpoints. It followed knowledge of when food was ready, where relatives lived and where a gathering would take place. The road belonged to that annual pattern of life.
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A history carried through families
In the Quesnel Museum’s Footprints in Stone project, Doreen Patrick describes Carrier people exchanging dried meat and berries for eulachon grease. She also recalls later journeys made by local people, including young people travelling with experienced guides. The route appears in her account as something known within families, passed on through journeys as well as words.
The travel she describes could involve horses and narrow mountain passages. Experienced guides knew how to move through those places, and younger travellers learned alongside them. Her recollections carry the story beyond Mackenzie’s expedition and back into the lives of the people who continued using the trail.
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The route remains part of living territory
A joint Lhoosk’uz Dené Nation and Ulkatcho First Nation assessment describes the Grease Trail as a continuing link to family territories, food-harvesting places and cultural sites. Community members also expressed dissatisfaction with naming the route principally for a European visitor.
These relationships continue beyond the line marked on a recreation map. Follow the relevant Nation’s guidance, respect private and culturally sensitive places, and stay with the public section you have planned to use.
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Begin with a section, and with its name
Northward’s Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail and Blackwater West guides describe specific sections reachable from Prince George. Their distances apply to those outings, so choose a section and check its current access before setting out.
The provincial Indigenous Heritage Features Handbook places grease trails within a larger transportation network subsequently used by explorers, surveyors and road builders. On the Nuxalk-Carrier route, the cargo moving along that network included food prepared on the coast and food gathered inland. The story begins with those exchanges: people carrying something valuable towards other people who were expecting them.
Explore the places in this story
Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail
Specific public outing information; historical total lengths differ by source and scope.
Blackwater West on the Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail
A specific section, not the complete coast-to-interior route.
Sources and further reading
- Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail: origin notes (opens original source)BC Geographical Names Office · Checked
- Nuxalk Peoples (opens original source)Bella Coola Valley Museum · Checked
- History of Ulkatcho First Nation (opens original source)Ulkatcho First Nation · Checked
- Grease Trail: account by Doreen Patrick (opens original source)Quesnel Museum, Footprints in Stone · Checked
- Lhoosk’uz Dené Nation and Ulkatcho First Nation: Part C, Blackwater Gold Mine Project (2019) (opens original source)Lhoosk’uz Dené Nation and Ulkatcho First Nation; compiled by Keefer Ecological Services · Checked
- Indigenous Heritage Features Handbook (opens original source)Province of British Columbia · Checked
