Fort Resolution National Historic Site

Here, on this rectangular peninsula jutting northward into Great Slave Lake, the Northern fur-trade got its foothold. Parks Canada has designated this 8.8-hectare expanse – long the site of a Hudson’s Bay Company post – as a national historic site. It and other trading posts in the region began operating as early as 1791.

The first was built by Cuthbert Grant Sr. of the North West Company, who had to move his Slave Fort trading post twice before settling near the mouth of the Slave River. In 1819, Aualay McAulay of the Hudson’s Bay Company built a competing post nearby, which he named Fort Resolution. After the union of the two companies in 1821 the two forts were merged and their structures moved to a small peninsula facing the Resolution Islands. The merged Fort Resolution became the Hudson’s Bay Company’s principal post on the lake, and remains an active community.

Though almost no trace of the original trading post now remains, visitors can enjoy the view of the lake and the Resolution Islands, imagining the hubbub here when Dene from throughout the Mackenzie Delta arrived to trade.