The divide was a barrier to the expansion of the North American fur trade, which largely used canoe routes. Although the divide was made the border of Rupert's Land in 1670, it wasn't until the late 18th century that it was actually mapped by European Canadian explorers with the assistance of Indigenous guides. In the early 19th century, the major trade routes across the divide were the Fort Assiniboine–Fort Edmonton road, Lac La Biche Portage, and Methye Portage.
History
The first people to cross the Arctic Divide were Paleo-Indians during the initial peopling of the Americas. These indigenous peoples established numerous trade and migration routes that crossed the divide.
After the 1668–1669 expedition of the British merchant ship Nonsuch, a 1670 charter formed the Hudson's Bay Company and granted it the territory of Rupert's Land, defined as all land draining into the waters within and beyond the Hudson Strait. This gave legal significance to the continental divide between the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay, although at the time its location was unknown. Exploration and settlement centered around the fur trade, and in Western Canada this initially focused on the beaver-rich mixed forest on the northern and eastern fringes of the Canadian Prairies.
European Canadian explorers began to encounter the divide in the late 18th century. Samuel Hearne, traveling with a Chipewyan group led by Matonabbee, was the first European Canadian to reach the Arctic Ocean over land from the continent's east coast in his 1770–1772 journey, which traveled from Churchill to the mouth of the Coppermine River and crossed the Arctic Divide to the east of Great Slave Lake. Peter Pond crossed the Methye Portage, already a traditional Indigenous route, on behalf of the newly formed North West Company in 1778; this led to expansion of the fur trade by several competing groups into the area around and beyond Lake Athabasca in what became known as the North-Western Territory. In 1796, David Thompson crossed the divide at Wollaston Lake upon the advice of Chipewyan guides in his party. Two years later, he traversed the portage at Lac La Biche. In 1825, a road was constructed in the prairies between Fort Edmonton and Fort Assiniboine, becoming a major route across the divide; it was in 1875 supplanted by the Athabasca Landing Trail slightly farther east.
Exploration proceeded such that a 1796 map by Aaron Arrowsmith notes the divide at a single point, the "Lands Height" across the Methye Portage, while an 1809 map by Arrowhead shows the divide through much of the continent. In 1821, the North West Company was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company, its jurisdiction was extended into the North-Western Territory. In 1870, Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory were combined and transferred to become the Northwest Territories of the newly confederatedCanada, removing the divide as a legal boundary.
Historical sources refer to the divide as the "height of land" or related terms. The term "Arctic Divide" is used in modern times. However, the term is also used for the unrelated northernmost part of the Great Divide in Alaska.
From this point forward, the divide traverses remote boreal forest and is traversed by few roads. The divide passes through the Dillon River Wildland Provincial Park and then remains in the vicinity of the Alberta–Saskatchewan border, crossing it five times. In its northernmost stretch in Alberta, it crosses the proposed route of Alberta Highway 956 and then passes through the Gipsy-Gordon Wildland Park between Gipsy Lake and Garson Lake.
The divide is interrupted at the watershed of Wollaston Lake and its main tributary, the Geikie River. Wollaston Lake is the world's largest natural bifurcation lake whose water exits both through the Fond du Lac River ultimately to the Arctic Ocean, and the Cochrane River ultimately to Hudson Bay. Saskatchewan Highway 914 terminates in this region and Saskatchewan Highway 905 crosses through it. The Canadian National Hydro Network map assigns a work unit boundary going through the lake that is sometimes confused for a watershed divide despite the fact that water freely exchanges through all areas of the lake and that work units do not necessarily reflect watershed boundaries.
In the northeasternmost part of Saskatchewan, the southern watershed of the divide switches from the Churchill River to the Thelon River.
Northwest Territories and Nunavut
The Arctic Divide takes a roughly north–south path through the remote eastern part of the Northwest Territories. The path includes an isthmus between Selwyn Lake and Wholdaia Lake. It crosses the tree line into the tundra, and then passes just to the east of Artillery Lake. Just to its north, the northern watershed of the divide switches from the Mackenzie River to the Back River.
The Baffin Island drainage divide, which separates the watersheds of Foxe Basin to the south from Baffin Bay to the north, may be considered part of the Arctic Divide. This divide begins at Fury and Hecla Strait and crosses a plateau to the west of the Gifford River and east of Saputing Lake, Admiralty Inlet, and Tasiujaq Sound. It then follows the central part of the Baffin Mountains, during which it crosses the Barnes Ice Cap. It then turns southwards, separating the Great Plain of the Koukdjuak from the areas around Cumberland Sound and Frobisher Bay. It then passes through the middle of the Meta Incognita Peninsula to its southeasternmost point at the edge of the Hudson Strait.
↑Arrowsmith, Aaron (1809). "British possessions in North America". Archived from the original on 2013-08-21. Retrieved 2026-10-22– via Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Collection.
↑Ray, Arthur J. (2025-07-10). "Hudson's Bay Company". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
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