Boats of the Mackenzie River watershed

The Mackenzie River in Canada's Northwest Territories is a historic waterway, used for centuries by Indigenous peoples, specifically the Dene, as a travel and hunting corridor. Also known as the Deh Cho, it is part of a larger watershed that includes the Slave, Athabasca, and Peace rivers extending from northern Alberta. In the 1780s, Peter Pond, a trader with the North West Company became the first known European to visit this watershed and begin viable trade with the Athapascan-speaking Dene of these rivers. The Mackenzie River itself, the great waterway extending to the Arctic Ocean, was first put on European maps by Alexander Mackenzie in 1789, the Scottish trader who explored the river. The watershed thus became a vital part of the North American fur trade, and before the advent of the airplane or road networks, the river was the only communication link between northern trading posts and the south. Water travel increased in the late 19th century as traders, dominated primarily by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), looked to increase water services in the Mackenzie River District.

Steamboat service established
The first steamship to ply the Mackenzie River watershed was on the Athabasca River in 1882, and its name was SS Grahame, a sternwheeler built by the HBC, operating from Athabasca Landing north of Edmonton to the Slave River rapids, the only significant obstacle en route to the Mackenzie. In 1886, SS Wrigley was launched on the other side of these rapids, at Fort Smith, and for the first time a steam-driven vessel operated on the Mackenzie River as far as Aklavik in the river delta before it spilled into the Arctic Ocean. A series of small portage trails were established between Smith's Landing (later Fort Fitzgerald) and Fort Smith to skirt the 16 mi rapids – this was later upgraded into a full road in the 1920s.

Effect of the Klondike Gold Rush
In 1898 the Klondike Gold Rush gave an impetus to the exploration of the Canadian North and the Mackenzie River basin was promoted as the best route to the Yukon if one was departing from Edmonton. The 1898–1900 period was very busy for the waterways, with many new private vessels built and running between the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers. In 1908, the HBC launched SS Mackenzie River, the first steam-powered shallow-draught sternwheeler ship on the Mackenzie River. In the 1920s, police, church missions, government agents, oil and mining companies, prospectors, and competing fur trade interests descended on the Northwest Territories and water transportation services boomed. Three companies competed for supremacy of the fur trade and water transportation: the HBC, Lamson & Hubbard Trading Company, Alberta & Arctic Transportation Co., and Northern Traders Company each with a fleet of steam vessels. A series of amalgamations and takeovers left only two main water operators after 1924: the HBC and Northern Traders Co. which later became the Northern Transportation Company Limited, commonly known as NTCL and now Marine Transportation Services or MTS, in the 1930s. The HBC continued in the business of transportation in conjunction with serving its own posts through Mackenzie River Transport, until 1947 when it got out of public freighting. Distributor, built in 1920 by Lamson & Hubbard, was the flagship of the HBC on the Mackenzie River for over 20 years. Communities such as Waterways (now a neighbourhood Fort McMurray) and Fort Smith thrived as the base for shipyards along the Athabasca and Slave Rivers, respectively.

Later years
Most of the old steam-driven vessels were replaced by diesel or gasoline-powered tug boats in the 1930s and 1940s. NTCL inaugurated a new fleet of steel-hull, diesel tugs in 1937, and the HBC and its transportation arm, Mackenzie River Transport Limited, got out of the common carrier business in 1947. The last steam-propelled sternwheelers, SS Distributor and SS Mackenzie, were retired around the same time. In later years, with the construction of the Mackenzie Highway from Alberta to Great Slave Lake, the importance of the Athabasca–Slave River route dwindled and NTCL operations were based from shipyards in Hay River, after 1959. NTCL became the primary water operator in the Mackenzie River watershed with the purchase of HBC's fleet and equipment in 1958, and the total buyout of Yellowknife Transportation Company in 1965 including its fleet of diesel tug boats. Other small commercial operators on the Mackenzie River included Kap's Transport, owned by Ron Kapchinsky, starting barge service out of Fort Providence in 1969–70; and Streepers Brothers Marine Transport and Cooper Barging Services based out of Fort Nelson, British Columbia, in the 1960s–1970s with operations mostly on the Fort Nelson and Liard Rivers. The northern barge traffic, now almost solely provided by Cooper Barging Services basing their marine services from Fort Simpson and Marine Transportation Services, now owned by the territorial government, based in Hay River are still essential to the heavy freight as fuel, food, and heavy equipment can be moved economically in the summer months to communities along the Mackenzie River and oil fields of the Beaufort Sea.

List of historic vessels
Only boats used in a commercial or industrial capacity are listed here. Ship prefixes used historically but often interchangeably depending on convention at the time: AS (auxiliary sloop), CGS (coast guard ship), CCGS (Canadian coast guard ship), MB (motor boat), MS (motor ship), MT (motor transport), MV (motor vessel), SS (steam ship). All measurements were originally imperial.