Chinchaga River oil and gas fields (such as Hamburg) and logging are developed in the area. Chinchaga River Chinchaga is a river in north-western Alberta. It is a tributary of the Hay River. Through the Hay River, its waters are carried to the Arctic Ocean via Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie River. The name Chinchaga is First Nations, and means "Big Wood River". Much of the Chinchaga watershed burned in 1950 during the Chinchaga fire. Chinchaga River originates in the Chinchaga Lakes, a series of small lakes in the muskeg of north-eastern British Columbia, at an elevation of 795 m. It flows
Boats of the Mackenzie River watershed Landing north of Edmonton to the Slave River rapids, the only significant obstacle en route to the Mackenzie. In 1886, the S.S. "Wrigley" was launched on the other side of these rapids, at Fort Smith, and for the first time a steam-driven vessel operated on the Mackenzie River as far as Aklavik in the river delta before it spilled into the Arctic Ocean. A series of small portage trails were established between Smith's Landing (later Fort Fitzgerald) and Fort Smith to skirt the 16-mile rapids - this was later upgraded into a full road in the 1920s. In 1898 the