By the 1700s, European trade in the Northwest Territories was dominated by two fur-trading companies, the Hudson's Bay Company, based in London, England, and the North West Company based in Montréal. Fur trade explorer Peter Pond lead the way through the Methye Portage into the vast territory of the Northwest where the rivers flowed North rather than East. In 1771, Samuel Hearne was the first European to reach the shore of the Arctic Ocean by an overland route via the Coppermine River. Further west and eighteen years later, in 1789, Alexander Mackenzie reached the Arctic Ocean. The river he navigated to get there now bears his name.