Puskwaskau River Puskwaskau River The Puskwaskau River is a short river in Northern Alberta, Canada. It is a tributary of the Smoky River flowing westwards in the Peace River Country. Its waters flow through the Smoky River, Peace River, Slave River, Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean. The name of the river originates from the Cree word for "short grass". The Puskwaskau Formation, a stratigraphical unit of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, was named for the river. The river originates from the Puskwaskau Lake in the Sturgeon Heights, at an elevation of , north-west from Valleyview. It flows
Mackenzie River Ocean on 14 July 1789. The river he named "Disappointment River" would later be renamed in his honor. No European reached its mouth again until Sir John Franklin on 16 August 1825. The following year he traced the coast west until blocked by ice while John Richardson followed the coast east to the Coppermine River. In 1849 William Pullen reached the Mackenzie from the Bering Strait. In the following decades the North West Company established forts on the river, the precursors of present-day settlements such as Fort Simpson (formerly Fort of the Forks). A lucrative fur trade was carried out,