The Burntwood River is a river in northeast

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

, Canada between the Churchill River and the

Nelson River The Nelson River is a river of north-central North America, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The river drains Lake Winnipeg and runs before it ends in Hudson Bay. Its full length (including the Saskatchewan River and Bow River) is , i ...

. Outsiders may know it as the river that passes through

Thompson, Manitoba Thompson (population 13,678) is the largest city in the Northern Region of Manitoba and is situated along the Burntwood River, north of Winnipeg. Originally founded in 1956 as a mining town, it now primarily serves as the "Hub of the North", ...

. It is over long and flows mostly east to join the Nelson River at Split Lake, Manitoba.

History

Near its headwaters around Burntwood Lake, the Kississing Portage connects it to the Churchill River. The route was used by lighter Indian canoes to carry the rich Athabasca furs to Hudson Bay or, by going up the Nelson, to the posts on Lake Winnipeg. The route was not much used by

voyageurs The voyageurs (; ) were 18th and 19th century French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs via canoe during the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the ' ...

partly because there was more

Pemmican Pemmican (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigenou ...

further south. Just south of the Burntwood, the Grass River, which also ends at Split Lake, was a parallel canoe route. In 1790 the Hudson's Bay Company built Lake's House at the mouth of the Burntwood. In 1793

David Thompson (explorer) David Thompson (30 April 1770 – 10 February 1857) was a English Canadian, British-Canadian fur trader, surveying, surveyor, and Cartography, cartographer, known to some native people as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer". Over Thompson's care ...

followed a large part of the Burntwood. In 1825–26

George Simpson (administrator) Sir George Simpson ( – 7 September 1860) was a Scottish explorer and colonial governor of the Hudson's Bay Company during the period of its greatest power. From 1820 to 1860, he was in practice, if not in law, the British viceroy for the whol ...

tried to use the Burntwood as a direct route from

York Factory York Factory was a settlement and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) factory (trading post) located on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Hayes River, approximately south-southeast of Churchill. Yo ...

to the Pacific, but the experiment was abandoned. Today it forms part of the Churchill River Diversion. The Wuskwatim Dam and Generating Station west of Thompson were expected to be completed in 2012.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Northern Manitoba Tributaries of Hudson Bay

History

See also

References