May 9, 1793. Fort Fork (modern day Alberta).

29 year-old Alexander Mackenzie is commissioned by the North West Company to lead a team of explorers to find a route that links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. On a previous attempt four years earlier, Mackenzie and his crew got really lost — they ended up in the Arctic Ocean.

This time, Mackenzie's band of explorers and Dene navigators get stuck finding a way of out the Rockies. They're left depleted and drained, until the Nuxalk nation happens upon them.