History
The regions along the river are the traditional home of the Dane-zaa people, called the Beaver by the Europeans. The fur trader Peter Pond is believed to have visited the river in 1785. In 1788 Charles Boyer of the North West Company established a fur trading post at the river's junction with the Boyer River.
In 1792 and 1793, the explorer Alexander Mackenzie travelled up the river to the Continental Divide. Mackenzie referred to the river as Unjegah, from a native word meaning "large river". The Peace River, or Unchaga or Unjaja, was named after Peace Point near Lake Athabasca, where the Treaty of the Peace was celebrated by the smoking of a peace pipe. The treaty ended the decades of hostilities between the Beaver and the Cree, in which the Cree dominated the Dane-zaa until a smallpox epidemic in 1781 decimated the Cree. The treaty made the Peace River a border, with the Dane-zaa to the North and the Cree to the South.
In 1794, a fur trading post was built on the Peace River at Fort St. John; it was the first non-native settlement on the British Columbia mainland.
Read more about this topic: Peace River (Canada)
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