Athabasca River is marked by rapids, impeding navigation southwest of Fort McMurray. The Athabasca River travels before draining into the Peace-Athabasca Delta near Lake Athabasca south of Fort Chipewyan. From there, its waters flow north as Rivière des Rochers, then joining the Peace River to form the Slave River that empties into Great Slave Lake and discharges through the Mackenzie River system into the Arctic Ocean. The cumulative drainage area is . Numerous communities are located on the banks of the Athabasca River, including Jasper, Brule, Entrance, Hinton, Whitecourt, Fort Assiniboine, Smith, Athabasca, Fort McMurray, and Fort McKay. An independent study has
Mackenzie River According to the British Columbia Environmental Network, "there is enough agricultural capability in the Peace River Valley to provide vegetables to all of northern Canada". The only functioning oil pipeline in the Mackenzie basin connects Norman Wells with Zama City, Alberta. Norman Wells was the main oil producing area on the Mackenzie River until the 1970s, when new oil fields were discovered further north in the Mackenzie delta and the surrounding coastline. As of 2016, there were an estimated 166 billion barrels of oil reserves in this region. There is a proposal for a Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, which has not