 On the advice of local First Nations people, who guided Mackenzie and his party to the Pacific Ocean, they gave up the river route for an overland one.The overland journey started just above the mouth of the Blackwater River at the West Road River west of Quesnel, taking them through the Upper Blackwater, along the Eliguk Lake and Gatcho Lake, through parts of what is now Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, over the Rainbow Mountains, into the Bella Coola Valley and "Friendly Village".The local people took the group down the Bella Coola River, over the salt water into the Dean Channel."