Who Discovered the North Saskatchewan River?

No single explorer “discovered” the North Saskatchewan River. Indigenous peoples—Cree, Blackfoot, Nakoda, and others—had known and used the river for millennia before Europeans arrived.

European Mapping

In the 17th and 18th centuries, fur traders and explorers (such as Henry Kelsey, Anthony Henday, and later David Thompson) gradually documented its course, integrating it into the expanding fur‑trade network of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company.

The river’s name derives from the Cree word kisiskāciwani‑sīpiy (“swift‑flowing river”).