A grease trail is an overland

trade route A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sing ...

, part of a network of trails connecting the

Pacific coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...

with the Interior in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

History

Trails were developed for trade between

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

, particularly the trade in

eulachon The eulacheon ( (''Thaleichthys pacificus''), also spelled oolichan , ooligan , hooligan ), also called the candlefish, is a small anadromous species of smelt that spawns in some of the major river systems along the Pacific coast of North Americ ...

oil (also spelled oolichan oil). The grease from these small fish could be traded for furs,

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

, and

obsidian Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements s ...

, among other things. The Stó:lō people of the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

simply ate the fish, either fresh or smoked, but the people of the interior used the oil as a condiment (similar to

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...

) and in various other ways.

Origin of the name

"Grease Trail",
Carrier Carrier may refer to: Entertainment * ''Carrier'' (album), a 2013 album by The Dodos * ''Carrier'' (board game), a South Pacific World War II board game * ''Carrier'' (TV series), a ten-part documentary miniseries that aired on PBS in April 20 ...
/tl'inaɣeti/. The name comes from the fact that the most important item traded into the interior was the processed oil of the
eulachon The eulacheon ( (''Thaleichthys pacificus''), also spelled oolichan , ooligan , hooligan ), also called the candlefish, is a small anadromous species of smelt that spawns in some of the major river systems along the Pacific coast of North Americ ...
fish Thaleichthys pacificus. Indeed, the Carrier word /tl'inaɣe/ "eulachon oil" is a compound of Carrier /xe/ "grease, oil" (combining form /ɣe/) with /tl'ina/, a loan from
Heiltsuk The Heiltsuk or Haíɫzaqv , sometimes historically referred to as ''Bella Bella'', are an Indigenous people of the Central Coast region in British Columbia, centred on the island community of Bella Bella. The government of the Heiltsuk people ...
or
Haisla Haisla may refer to: * Haisla people, an indigenous people living in Kitamaat, British Columbia, Canada. * Haisla language, their northern Wakashan language. * Haisla Nation The Haisla Nation is the Indian Act-mandated band government which nominall ...
, North Wakashan languages spoken on the coast.

"Because these trails were commonly used to transport Oolichan grease, they are now referred to as 'grease trails.' For thousands of years, First Nations traders followed well-trodden 'grease trails,' usually the easiest routes across plateaus, highlands and over challenging mountains far into the western interior, back-packing heavy boxes of valuable Oolichan grease, held in place by cedar rope 'tump-lines,' attached to headbands. The trails, operating on a relay system, covered a geographic area from what is now the Yukon Territories in Canada south to what is now northern California in the United States and as far east as central Montana and Alberta, to interior peoples like the Babine, Carrier and other Athabaskans."

Grease trails and former grease trails

Alexander MacKenzie Heritage Trail The Alexander MacKenzie Heritage Trail (also Nuxalk-Carrier Route or Blackwater Trail) is a long historical overland route between Quesnel and Bella Coola, British Columbia, Canada. Of the many grease trails connecting the Coast with the Inte ...

Chilkoot Trail The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the late ...

Cheslatta Trail The Cheslatta Trail (or ''Tsetl'adak ts'eti'' in Carrier)Nyan Whut'en Hubughunek (Cheslatta Carrier Dictionary). 2009. William J.Poser (compiler). Burns Lake, BC: Cheslatta Carrier Nation. is an ancient land route in British Columbia, Canada, that ...

Dalton Trail The Dalton Trail is a trail that runs between Pyramid Harbor, west of Haines, Alaska in the United States, and Fort Selkirk, in the Yukon Territory of Canada, using the Chilkat Pass. It is 396 km (246 mi) long. Originally, the Chil ...

Nyan Wheti Nyan Wheti is an ancient land route in northern British Columbia, Canada from the Dakelh villages on Fraser Lake (''Nadlehbunk'ut'') to villages on Stuart Lake (''Nak'albun''), about 50 km to the north. The name in Carrier means "The Way Across." ...

Citations

References

* Birchwater, Sage. ''Ulkatcho. Stories of the Grease Trail'', Anahim Lake, Ulkatcho Indian Band 1993. * Harrington, Lyn. (1953, March). Trail of the Candlefish. The Beaver Magazine Of The North. (pp. 40–44) *{{cite conference, last=Hirch, first=Mirjam, date=September 12, 2003, location=Kamloops, BC, institution=University College of the Caribou, title=Trading across time and space: Culture along the North American "Grease Trails" from a European perspective, conference=Canadian Studies International Interdisciplinary Conference *''Grease Trails'', in: Turkel, William Joseph. ''The Archive of Place. Unearthing the Pasts of the Chilcotin Plateau'', pp. 108–135.

External links

Smelt
What's Cooking America?

Trade routes Roads in Canada by type