Alberta Couple Honoured for Decades of Efforts to Document and Preserve the Nuxalk-Dakelh Grease Trail

A couple from Alberta have received provincial recognition for their efforts to document and preserve the Nuxalk-Dakelh Grease Trail.

Hälle and Linda Flygare were honoured by the BC Historical Federation last month for over five decades of discoveries along the route.

Also known as the Alexander Mackenzie Grease Trail, the route covers nearly 350 kilometres between Bella Coola and Quesnel.

It marks an ancient trade route that also served as the path Nuxalk and Carrier guides led Alexander Mackenzie down in the late 18th century.

Between 1975 and 1986, Hälle retraced and photographed the trail using Mackenzie’s journals on the trek.

Those photographs, as well as information gathered on the trail, form the basis of six self-published books released by Flygare since 2021.

Just last year, Flygare rediscovered another 25 kilometre stretch of the trail, but earned no acknowledgement from BC Parks.

He says he is also fighting to have a 30 kilometre connector trail he discovered in 1975 added to the Heritage Trail and granted its protections.