Born 1764,
Stornoway, Outer Hebrides, Scotland
Died March 12, 1820,
Scotland
When searching for a river route from the Canadian interior to the Pacific Ocean, Sir Alexander Mackenzie canoed through Alberta and British Columbia. He reached the ocean after traversing a complicated series of rivers and portages. Although Mackenzie did not find a route to cross this area exclusively by water, he became the first person to cross North America north of Mexico.
Mackenzie was born in Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland. When he was ten years old, he and his widowed father sailed to New York. Shortly after their arrival the Revolutionary War broke out and Mackenzie’s father joined the British forces; he died from illness while in service in 1780. In the meantime, Mackenzie had been sent to school in the city of Montreal in Quebec.
At the age of 15 Mackenzie became a clerk in a large Montreal fur-trading company. Five years later he was entrusted with his first trading mission—the delivery of supplies to the company’s post in Detroit, Michigan. He carried out this task so successfully that he was made a partner in the company. He went to work in Grand Portage, the trading post at the end of Lake Superior that served as the company’s link with the Canadian interior. When the company’s partners held their annual meeting at Grand Portage in 1785, Mackenzie was chosen to oversee the region of the Churchill River, with headquarters at Île-a-la-Crosse in what is now northern Saskatchewan, Canada.
In 1787 Mackenzie’s company merged with the much larger North West Company. In 1788 Mackenzie was appointed supervisor of the Athabasca fur district; his headquarters was at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca in what is now northern Alberta. In his new position Mackenzie became a colleague of Peter Pond, a trader who had explored widely in the interior. Using information from Native Americans with whom he traded, Pond had gained a general idea of the river system of northwest Canada.
Pond had learned of a large river (the Slave) that flowed into Great Slave Lake from the south. He had also heard that a second river flowed out of the western end of the lake and on north to the Arctic. Aware of the discovery by British explorer James Cook (see entry) of Cook Inlet on the south coast of Alaska, Pond theorized that the river that branched out of the Great Slave Lake flowed westward to Cook Inlet rather than north. If he was correct, this river would provide the much-sought-after route to the Pacific Ocean. Pond retired in 1788 without testing his theory.
Mackenzie decided to test Pond’s theory himself. Heading a large party of traders and Native Americans, he started out from Fort Chipewyan on June 3, 1789. The rapids on the Slave River made travel slow and difficult, and the party was delayed by ice on Great Slave Lake. However, once they reached the river flowing out of the lake, which has since been named the Mackenzie River, they traveled rapidly, averaging 75 miles a day.
Since the river continued westward for the first few days, Mackenzie thought he had found the route to the Pacific. But then the river turned north; and after going several days in this direction, Mackenzie realized that it must flow into the Arctic Ocean. The party followed the river all the way to its outlet in the Arctic, then stayed four days on a nearby island. They started back upstream on July 16, 1789, reaching Fort Chipewyan two months later. Although Mackenzie had found one of the world’s great rivers, the discovery was a disappointment to him because it did not offer any practical use for the fur traders who were looking for a way west.
Mackenzie decided to make another expedition to see if he could find a better fur-trading route. Before setting out on his journey, he went to London for several months to learn more about navigation and surveying so he could make more accurate measurements of locations. He returned with a supply of basic measuring instruments that he would soon put to good use.
On his second expedition, which began October 10, 1792, Mackenzie and his party initially followed the Peace River to its juncture with the Smoky River. At the point where the two rivers meet, they built a camp and spent the winter. They set out again on May 9, 1793. By the end of May, they reached the point where the Parsnip and Finlay rivers come together in northeastern British Columbia. Mackenzie is credited with the discovery of the Fraser River, which was named for Simon Fraser, the explorer who later followed the river to its mouth. Heeding the advice of local Native Americans, Mackenzie led the canoes up the Parsnip River and made a portage to the McGregor River; from there the explorers canoed to the Fraser River.
At this point, Mackenzie thought he had found the headwaters of the Columbia. The party traveled down the river as far as the site of the present-day town of Alexandria—which was named after Mackenzie—in British Columbia, where the Native Americans advised Mackenzie to go no farther. They said from there on the river was too difficult to navigate because it contained numerous falls and rapids. Mackenzie decided to turn back and went as far as the West Road River. Starting up the West Road on July 4, 1793, they crossed what came to be known as Mackenzie Pass at 6,000 feet and then headed west down the Bella Coola River.
After traveling for some time, the explorers reached the village of the Bella Coola tribe, where Mackenzie made note of the houses, which stood on stilts. He wrote later, “From these houses, I could perceive the termination of the river, and its discharge into a narrow arm of the sea.” Mackenzie had reached the Pacific, thus becoming the first person to have crossed North America north of Mexico.
Mackenzie spent a few days exploring the fjords that make up that part of the British Columbia coast. At Dean Channel he learned that Europeans had been there recently: the British navigator George Vancouver had reached the area by sea just six weeks earlier. As a record of his visit, Mackenzie painted an inscription on a large rock in Dean Channel: “Alex Mackenzie from Canada by land 22d July 1793.” The inscription has been preserved and can still be seen today in a provincial park.
Mackenzie began his return trip on July 23 and reached Fort Chipewyan a month later. He and his party traveled with unusual speed, given the means of transportation and the obstacles they encountered. Upon his return to Fort Chipewyan, Mackenzie ended his days as an explorer, but he continued to make ambitious plans for the fur trade. Following the winter of 1793-94 Mackenzie went east with the idea of uniting the two largest fur-trading companies, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company. He hoped that together the two companies could cooperate with the East India Company to open a new trade route to China. He advocated these ideas for several years but they were never realized exactly as he imagined. Mackenzie returned to Montreal and served as a director of a trading company until he left Canada for England in November 1799.
While he was in England, Mackenzie wrote an account of his expeditions, Voyages … to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, which was published in 1801. For his valuable contribution to knowledge of the Canadian northwest, he was knighted and became Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 1802. He returned to Canada that same year; in 1805 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. After serving briefly in the legislature he went back to London. In 1808 Mackenzie retired to Scotland, where he spent the rest of his life.
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