a liaison between local tribes and European explorers. The first white man to reach the Kechika River basin was Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fur trader Samuel Black, who in 1824 ascended the Finlay River scouting northern BC for a route westward to the Pacific Ocean. At the confluence of the Fox River with the Finlay he noted "it heads at a pass two days' travel northward, whence a river flows northward into the Liard." Black never saw this northward-flowing river (which would be the Kechika), instead heading west into the Stikine Country and turning back at a stream that he named the Turnagain River, which flows northeast into the Kechika. In 1831, HBC trader John McLeod ascended the Liard River and in passing by the mouth of the Kechika River, correctly guessed that it was the outlet of what Black had called the Turnagain River, and so named the stream "Black's River". The 1873 Cassiar Gold Rush was centered on a tributary of the Turnagain, the Cassiar River. Between 1873 and 1886, prospectors explored large areas of the Turnagain and upper Kechika River basins. Although the area is rich in minerals, no mines were ever developed along the Kechika River corridor. Minerals documented in the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area include "copper, lead, zinc, silver, barite, gold, tungsten, chalcopyrite, pyrite, dolomite, quartz crystals, malachite, aragonite, mica and azurite." Fur trappers and prospectors of the 1800s often called the Kechika River the "Muddy River" or "Big Muddy River" due to the heavy silt loads the river brought down in floods. In 1898 the Klondike Gold Rush spurred interest in finding a route from Alberta to the Yukon. Inspector J.D. Moodie of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) explored the Kechika valley as a potential route for prospectors traveling from Edmonton, Alberta. Hedley (1941) called Moodie's report "the first authoritative description of the region". Moodie's route followed the Peace River to Fort Ware (Kwadacha) and then followed the old Davie Trail through the Kechika valley up towards the Yukon. The "Old Moodie Trail" was considered one of the most difficult routes to the Klondike gold fields, compared to sea routes starting in Victoria, British Columbia and landing in northern BC or Alaska, and only a few prospectors successfully completed the trip. In 1900 a cattle drive to the Yukon was attempted via this trail from Vanderhoof, British Columbia and in 1905 the BC government