Author and Wildlife Photographer visits the Museum

Hälle Flygare, well-known wildlife and nature photographer, recently visited the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre with fellow photographer, Dr. Robert Berdan. They were on their way to Yellowknife to capture the Aurora Borealis with their lenses.

Flygare’s association with the Museum and Alexander Mackenzie’s overland route from the Fraser River to the Pacific Ocean has been a long and productive one. Flygare played an integral role in the establishment of a Master Development Plan for the route Mackenzie took on his way to the Pacific Ocean. It was once called the Alexander Mackenzie Grease Trail, but convention suggested the word “grease” be dropped, although its historical validity was appreciated. It is now referred to as the Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail, which covers, not only the prehistoric trade trails, but also the 100 kilometres of Bella Coola Valley and coastal fiord not grease trails, as well as the Tweedsmuir Park alpine section Mackenzie hiked “that no sensible Indian would have used as a pack trail,” according to an account in In the Steps of Alexander Mackenzie, Second Edition, by John Woodworth.