Two Routes to the Pacific
In 1793, Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific Coast by moving through existing
Nuxalk and Carrier trade networks. In 1804–1806, Lewis and Clark followed a U.S.
government reconnaissance mission along the Missouri-Columbia watershed.
This interactive map compares those two modes of moving through Indigenous territory.
Enable JavaScript to explore the full cartographic narrative.
This work engages the traditional and ancestral territories of the Chinook, Clatsop,
and the Columbia River treaty tribes — the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the
Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, and the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation — and, along the Mackenzie corridor, the Nuxalk,
Carrier (Dakelh), Sekani, and Secwépemc nations, and many other Pacific Northwest
and Plateau peoples. Indigenous territory data credit: Native Land Digital (nativeland.ca).