Alexander Mackenzie (explorer)

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Sir Alexander Mackenzie

Alexander Mackenzie painted by Thomas Lawrence (c. 1800 – 1801),

courtesy National Gallery of Canada

Born 1764

Stornoway, Lewis, Scotland

Died 12 March 1820 (aged 55–56)

near Dunkeld, Scotland, United Kingdom

Occupation Explorer

 Mackenzie River
Known for
 Mackenzie, British Columbia

Signature

Sir Alexander Mackenzie (or MacKenzie, Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair MacCoinnich;

1764 – 12 March 1820) was a Scottish explorer known for accomplishing the first
east to west crossing of America north of Mexico in 1793, which preceded the more
famous Lewis and Clark Expedition by 12 years. The Mackenzie River is named
after him, the longest river system in Canada and the second longest in North
America.
 Contents

 1Early life
 2Explorations
o 2.11789 Mackenzie River expedition to the Arctic Ocean
o 2.21792–93 Peace River expedition to the Pacific Ocean
 3Later life and family
 4Legacy
 5References
o 5.1Bibliography
 6External links

Early life[edit]
Mackenzie was born in Luskentyre House in Stornoway in Lewis.[1][2] He was the third
of the four children born to Kenneth 'Corc' Mackenzie (1731–1780) and his wife
Isabella MacIver, from another prominent mercantile family in Stornoway. [3] When
only 14 years old, Mackenzie's father served as an ensign to protect Stornoway
during the Jacobite rising of 1745. He later became a merchant and held
the tack of Melbost; his grandfather being a younger brother of Murdoch Mackenzie,
6th Laird of Fairburn.[4][5]
Educated at the same school as Colin Mackenzie, the army officer and first Surveyor
General of India, he sailed to New York City with his father to join an uncle, John
Mackenzie, in 1774, after his mother died in Scotland. [6] In 1776, during the American
War of Independence, his father and uncle resumed their military duties and joined
the King's Royal Regiment of New York as lieutenants. By 1778, for his safety as a
son of loyalists, young Mackenzie was either sent, or accompanied by two aunts,
to Montreal.[4] By 1779 (a year before his father's death at Carleton Island[3]),
Mackenzie had a secured apprenticeship with Finlay, Gregory & Co., one of the most
influential fur trading companies in Montreal, which was later administered
by Archibald Norman McLeod. In 1787, the company merged with the North West
Company.[7]

Explorations[edit]
1789 Mackenzie River expedition to the Arctic Ocean[edit]
On behalf of the North West Company, Mackenzie traveled to Lake
Athabasca where, in 1788, he was one of the founders of Fort Chipewyan. He had
been sent to replace Peter Pond, a partner in the North West Company. From Pond,
he learned that the First Nations people understood that the local rivers flowed to the
northwest. Thinking that it would lead to Cook Inlet in Alaska, he set out by canoe on
the river known to the local Dene First Nations people as the Dehcho (Mackenzie
River), on 3 July 1789.[8][9] On 14 July he reached the Arctic Ocean, rather than the
Pacific. Later, in a letter to his cousin Roderick, he called the waterway "the River
Disappointment," since the river did not prove to be the Northwest Passage, as he
had hoped.[10] In fact the story is probably apocryphal, as Mackenzie's own and
contemporary records merely refer to it as the "Grand River." [11] The river came to be
known[when?] as the Mackenzie River in his honor.[12]
1792–93 Peace River expedition to the Pacific Ocean[edit]

Map of the North Part of America on which is laid down Mackenzie's Track from Montreal to the North Sea

Inscription on a stone at the end of Alexander Mackenzie's 1792–1793 Canada crossing from the Peace
River to the Pacific Ocean coast; located at 52°22′43″N 127°28′14″W

In 1791, Mackenzie returned to Great Britain to study the new advance in the
measurement of longitude. Upon his return to Canada in 1792, he set out once again
to find a route to the Pacific. Accompanied by two native guides (one named
Cancre), his cousin, Alexander MacKay, six Canadian voyageurs (Joseph Landry,
Charles Ducette, François Beaulieu, Baptiste Bisson, Francois Courtois, Jacques
Beauchamp) and a dog simply referred to as "our dog", Mackenzie left Fort
Chipewyan on 10 October 1792, and traveled via the Pine River to the Peace River.
[13]
 From there he traveled to a fork on the Peace River arriving 1 November where he
and his cohorts built a fortification that they resided in over the winter. This later
became known as Fort Fork.[14][15]
Mackenzie left Fort Fork on 9 May 1793, following the route of the Peace River. [15] He
crossed the Great Divide and found the upper reaches of the Fraser River, but was
warned by the local natives that the Fraser Canyon to the south was unnavigable
and populated by belligerent tribes. [16] He was instead directed to follow a grease
trail by ascending the West Road River, crossing over the Coast Mountains and
descending the Bella Coola River to the sea. He followed this advice and reached
the Pacific coast on 20 July 1793, at Bella Coola, British Columbia, on North
Bentinck Arm, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean.[17] Having done this, he had completed
the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico, 12
years before Lewis and Clark. He had unknowingly missed meeting George
Vancouver at Bella Coola by 48 days.[citation needed]
He had wanted to continue westward out of a desire to reach the open ocean, but
was stopped by the hostility of the Heiltsuk people.[18] Hemmed in by Heiltsuk war
canoes, he wrote a message on a rock near the water's edge of Dean Channel,
using a reddish paint made of vermilion and bear grease, and turned back east. The
inscription read: "Alex MacKenzie / from Canada / by land / 22 d July 1793" (at the
time the name Canada was an informal term for the former French territory in what is
now southern Quebec and Ontario).[19]:418 The words were later inscribed permanently
by surveyors. The site is now Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Park and is
designated a First Crossing of North America National Historic Site.[20] In 2016,
Mackenzie was named a National Historic Person.[21]
In his journal Mackenzie recorded the Carrier language for the first time.[22]

Later life and family[edit]

In 1801, the journals of Mackenzie's exploratory journeys were published. [13][23] He
was knighted in the following year.[24] He served in the Legislature of Lower
Canada for Huntingdon County,[25] from 1804 to 1808.[3]

Burial site of Alexander Mackenzie at Avoch Parish Church in the village of Avoch, Scotland; including a
replica of the stone he painted at Bella Coola, British Columbia

In 1812 Mackenzie, then aged 48, returned to Scotland, where he married 14-year-
old Geddes Mackenzie, twin heiress of Avoch. They had two sons and a daughter.
[18]
 Her grandfather, Captain John Mackenzie of Castle Leod (great-grandson
of George Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Seaforth), purchased the estate of Avoch with
money left to him by his first cousin and brother-in-law, Admiral George Geddes
Mackenzie. Lady Mackenzie's father was a first cousin of the father of George
Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Mackenzies lived between
Avoch and London. He died in 1820 of Bright's disease, at an age of 56 (his exact
date of birth unknown). He is buried at Avoch on the Black Isle.[3]

Legacy[edit]
The Mackenzie River is named for him, as is Mackenzie Bay, the municipality
of Mackenzie, British Columbia, and the Mackenzie Mountains, a mountain range in
northern Canada.[citation needed]
There are a number of schools in Canada named after him, such as Sir Alexander
Mackenzie Senior Public School in Toronto,[26] Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary
School in Vancouver,[27] and Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary School in St.
Albert.[28]
He is referenced in the 1981 folk song "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers.[1]
The Alexander Mackenzie rose (Explorer Series), developed in 1985 by Agriculture
and Agri-Food Canada, was named in his honour.[29]
Between 1989 and 1993, the Mackenzie Bicentennial Sea-to-Sea Expeditions
of Lakehead University attempted a segmented re-enactment of the journey between
Montreal and Bella Coola, British Columbia, but was unable to complete the final
overland 350 kilometres (220 mi) Grease Trail when its First Nation owners refused
permission.[30][31]

References