page_title: Slave River
section_title: Rapids and kayaking
hierarchical_section_title: Slave River / Rapids and kayaking
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph, Aboriginal people portaging goods, Slave River, NT, about 1900, C. W. Mathers, Silver salts on paper mounted on card - Gelatin silver process, 25 × 20 cm Français&#160;: Photographie, Autochtones transportant des marchandises, rivière Slave, T. N.-O., vers 1900, C. W. Mathers, Gélatine argentique, 25 × 20 cm
context_page_description: The Slave River is a Canadian river that flows from the confluence of the Rivière des Rochers and Peace River in northeastern Alberta and empties into Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. The river's name is thought to derive from the name for the Slavey group of the Dene First Nations, Deh Gah Got'ine, in the Athabaskan language. The Chipewyan had displaced other native people from this region.
context_section_description: The Slave River and the rapids around Fort Smith are some of the best whitewater kayaking in the world. There are four sets of rapids: Pelican, Rapids of the Drowned, Mountain Portage, and Cassette. The rapids range from easy class I on the International Scale of River Difficulty to unrunnable killer class VI holes. Huge volume, massive waves, and the home of the northernmost river pelican colony in North America characterize this river. The pelicans nest on many of the islands at the Mountain Portage Rapids. These islands serve as a sanctuary to the birds and are closed to human traffic from April 15 to September 15.
  Boaters have been killed in the Slave River rapids. The earliest recorded fatalities occurred as a part of Cuthbert Grant's expedition of 1786 at the Rapids of the Drowned (a class II-IV Rapid Set).
caption: Portaging along the Slave River in 1900
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