The great Mackenzie River, the second longest river in North America, is defined by superlatives. It remains what all our great rivers used to be: unpredictable, powerful, and vital to the land and the lives of its people. Flowing “down North” from the headwaters of the Peace River in northern British Columbia with a total watershed length of 4,216 kilometres, the Mackenzie drains one-fifth of Canada. It truly deserves its Dene name Deh Cho, roughly translated as “the great river”. Almost two kilometres wide in some places, it shrinks in others to a half-kilometre. It flows through narrow 60-metre high cliffs, and the 250-kilometre maze of the Mackenzie Delta wetlands.