Boats of the Mackenzie River watershed carrier business in 1947. The last steam-propelled sternwheelers, the "S.S. Distributor" and "S.S. Mackenzie" were retired around the same time. In later years, with the construction of the Mackenzie Highway from Alberta to Great Slave Lake, the importance of the Athabasca-Slave River route dwindled and NTCL operations were based from shipyards in Hay River after 1959. NTCL became the primary water operator in the Mackenzie River watershed with the purchase of Hudson's Bay Company's fleet and equipment in 1958, and the total buyout of Yellowknife Transportation Company in 1965 including its fleet of diesel tug boats. Other small commercial operators
Geikie River (Saskatchewan) Fond du Lac River which flows out of the lake to the north-west where it drains into Lake Athabasca which ultimately drains into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River system, or into the Cochrane River which flows out of the north-eastern side of the lake and into Reindeer Lake which drains via the Churchill River system into Hudson Bay. If Hudson Bay is defined as part of the Atlantic Ocean then the Geikie River is the largest river in the world that drains naturally into two oceans. The Geikie River is bridged by Highway 905 at the highway's 184