Great Slave Lake
North American Aboriginal Peoples were the first people to live around the lake. They built communities including Dettah, which still exists today. British fur trader Samuel Hearne explored the area in 1771 and crossed the frozen lake. He named it Lake Athapuscow. This was a misunderstanding of the name Athabaska. In 1897-1898, the American frontiersman Charles "Buffalo" Jones traveled to the Arctic Circle.