Gabriel Franchère [1786–1863] crossed the Athabasca Pass in 1814 with a fur brigade heading east. He wrote:

On the morning of the 19th we skirted the edge of a little lake. We abandoned our small canoe, which was no longer serviceable and in any case Rocky Mountain Fort was not far away, walked along a sandy beach and finally saw smoke from the house; after fording the lake, which at this season was almost dry, we reached the establishment and met Messrs McDonald, Stewart and McKenzie, who had preceded us by only two days. They were busy building a bark canoe to travel to Fort William or Grand Portage.

A Mr. Decoigne had charge of this post, which does not furnish many furs to the Company, whose principal object in founding it was to make it a warehouse for those on the Columbia River or returning from it. Not expecting us to arrive in such numbers, Mr Decoigne had neither enough food nor sufficient bark to allow us to make the two canoes that we needed to carry us. We therefore killed a dog on arrival, and towards evening one very emaciated horse

The editor of the journal, William Kaye Lamb [1904–1999], noted that Franchère’s Rocky Mountain Fort was built in 1813 on the shore of Brûlé Lake by François Decoigne [1767–1861], a clerk in the North West Company. This post later became known as Jasper House. Decoigne had been a clerk in the NWC since 1798.

The Geographic Board of the Department of the Interior published Place-names of Alberta in 1928. They claimed that the Decoigne station on the Canadian National Railway at Yellowhead Pass was named after François Decoigne, “yellow-haired trapper, after whom the Yellowhead Pass is named.”

Bohi remarks that Decoigne was previously known as Mount Cavell and Geikie.