Alexander Mackenzie | |
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.jpg) 1800 portrait by SirThomas Lawrence | |
| Born | c. 1764 Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland |
| Died | 12 March 1820 (aged 55–56) Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland |
| Occupation(s) | Explorer, fur trader |
| Known for | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Parents |
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| Signature | |
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Sir Alexander Mackenzie (c. 1764 – 12 March 1820) was a Scottish-Canadian explorer and fur trader known for accomplishing the first crossing ofNorth America north ofMexico by a European in 1793. TheMackenzie River andMount Sir Alexander are named after him.
As a leading member of the North West Company, he aspired to extend the Company's operations into western Canada and selling those furs in China. His hopes thus were intrusions on the monopoly positions of both the Hudson's Bay Company and the East India Company.[1]
Mackenzie was born inStornoway inLewis.[2][3] 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.[4] When only 14 years old, Mackenzie's father served as anensign to protect Stornoway during theJacobite rising of 1745. He later became a merchant and held thetack ofMelbost; his grandfather being a younger brother of Murdoch Mackenzie, 6thLaird of Fairburn.[5][6]
Educated at the same school asColin Mackenzie, the army officer and firstSurveyor 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.[7] In 1776, during theAmerican War of Independence, his father and uncle resumed their military duties and joined theKing's Royal Regiment of New York as lieutenants. By 1778, for his safety as a son of loyalists, young Mackenzie was sent, or went accompanied by two aunts, toMontreal.[5] By 1779 (a year before his father's death atCarleton Island[4]), Mackenzie had a secured apprenticeship with Finlay, Gregory & Co., one of the most influentialfur trading companies in Montreal, which was later administered byArchibald Norman McLeod. In 1787, the company merged with theNorth West Company.[8]
On behalf of the North West Company, Mackenzie journeyed toLake Athabasca where, in 1788, he was one of the founders ofFort Chipewyan. He had been sent to replacePeter Pond, a partner in the North West Company. From Pond, he learned that theFirst Nations people understood that the local rivers flowed to the north-west. Thinking that it would lead toCook Inlet inAlaska, he set out by canoe on the river known to the localDene First Nations people as theDehcho (Mackenzie River), on 3 July 1789.[9][10] On 14 July he reached the Arctic Ocean, rather than the Pacific. Later, in a letter to his cousinRoderick, he called the waterway "the River Disappointment," since the river did not prove to be theNorthwest Passage, as he had hoped.[11] In fact the story is probably apocryphal, as Mackenzie's own and contemporary records merely refer to it as the "Grand River."[12] The river came to be known[when?] as theMackenzie River in his honour.[13]
[14] In 1791, Mackenzie returned toGreat Britain to study the new advance in the measurement oflongitude. In the aftermath of theNootka Crisis with Spain, he returned to Canada in 1792, and set out to find a route to the Pacific. Accompanied by two native guides (one named Cancre), his cousin,Alexander MacKay, six Canadianvoyageurs (Joseph Landry, Charles Ducette,François Beaulieu, Baptiste Bisson, Francois Courtois, Jacques Beauchamp), and a dog simply referred to as "our dog", Mackenzie leftFort Chipewyan on 10 October 1792, and travelled via thePine River to thePeace River.[15] From there he travelled 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 asFort Fork.[16][17]
Mackenzie left Fort Fork on 9 May 1793, following the route of the Peace River.[17] He crossed theGreat Divide and found the upper reaches of theFraser River, but was warned by the local natives that theFraser Canyon to the south was unnavigable and populated by belligerent tribes.[18] He was instead directed to follow agrease trail by ascending theWest Road River, crossing over theCoast Mountains and descending theBella Coola River to the sea. He followed this advice and reached the Pacific coast on 20 July 1793, atBella Coola, British Columbia, onNorth Bentinck Arm, aninlet of the Pacific Ocean.[19] Having done this, he had completed the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico, 12 years beforeLewis and Clark. He had unknowingly missed meetingGeorge Vancouver at Bella Coola by 48 days.
He had wanted to continue westward out of a desire to reach the open ocean, but was stopped by the hostility of theHeiltsuk people.[20] Hemmed in by Heiltsuk war canoes, he wrote a message on a rock near the water's edge ofDean Channel, using a reddish paint made of vermilion and bear grease, and turned back east. The painting read: "“Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three”" (at the timeCanada was a name for theformer French territory in what is now southern Quebec and Ontario).[21]: 418 The words, partly abbreviated, were later inscribed permanently by (Captain) R.P. Bishop and his surveyors in 1923.[22][23] The site is nowSir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Park and is designated First Crossing of North AmericaNational Historic Site.[24] In 2016, Mackenzie was named aNational Historic Person.[25]
He returned the way he had come, arriving at Fort Chipewyan on Aug. 24. He spent the winter there working in the fur trade.[1] The next year he returned to Montreal. Soon after, he travelled to the U.S. and to London. He returned to Montreal and became one of the leading partners of the North West Company.[26] In 1799 he left the Company and travelled to London to lobby on behalf of the Canadian fur trade. In 1800 he returned to Canada and aided in the formation of the New North West Company (also known as the XY Company).
In his journal Mackenzie recorded theCarrier language for the first time.[27]
In 1801 he returned to London and that year the journals of his exploratory journeys were published.[28][1] (They were later reprinted.[15][29])
He then presented a detailed plan of his west coast project to the British government "Preliminaries to the Establishment of a Permanent British Fishery and Trade in Furs etc. on the Continent and West Coast of North America."[1] The British government, at the time predicting conflict with Napoleon, took no action. (LaterSimon Fraser andDavid Thompson worked to extend the Canadian fur trade and prevent U.S. incursion in what would be Canada.[1])
Mackenzie wasknighted in 1802.[30]
He returned to Canada, where as Sir Alexander Mackenzie, he was lionized. He was elected to theLegislature of Lower Canada.[1] He served as member forHuntingdon County[31] from 1804 to 1808.[4]
In 1812 Mackenzie, then aged 48, returned to Scotland, where he married 14-year-old Geddes Mackenzie, twin heiress ofAvoch. They had two sons and a daughter.[20] Her grandfather, Captain John Mackenzie of Castle Leod (great-grandson ofGeorge 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 ofGeorge Simpson, Governor of theHudson's Bay Company. The Mackenzies lived alternately in Avoch and London.
He died in 1820 ofBright's disease, at about the age of 56 (his date of birth is unknown). He is buried at Avoch on theBlack Isle.[4]
TheMackenzie River andMount Sir Alexander are named for him, as isMackenzie Bay, and the municipality ofMackenzie, British Columbia.[citation needed]
There are a number of schools in Canada named after him, such asSir Alexander Mackenzie Senior Public School in Toronto,[32]Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary School in Vancouver,[33] andSir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary School in St. Albert.[34] Also Sir Alexander Mackenzie School in the Bella Coola Valley, BC.
He is referenced in the 1981folk song"Northwest Passage" byStan Rogers.[35]
The Alexander Mackenzie rose (Explorer Series), developed in 1985 byAgriculture and Agri-Food Canada, was named in his honour.[36]
Between 1989 and 1993, the Mackenzie Bicentennial Sea-to-Sea Expeditions ofLakehead University attempted a segmented re-enactment of the journey between Montreal andBella Coola, British Columbia, but was unable to complete the final overland 350 kilometres (220 mi)Grease Trail when itsFirst Nation owners refused permission.[37][38]
The legend of Mackenzie is a running theme in Boundary Waters (2025) by Tristan Hughes.[39]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Sir Alexander Mackenzie Sr. P.S. (SAM) officially opened on January 20, 1972. Our school name honours a man who demonstrated integrity and perseverance while exploring his way across Canada. Sir Alexander Mackenzie was born in Scotland. He was a fur trader and the first white man to cross North America north of Mexico, charting and exploring huge expanses of Canada....
Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Address: 960 East 39th Avenue 1909 – present Named after Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1764–1820), Scottish explorer and fur trader....
Sir Alexander Mackenzie School, named for the explorer and fur trader who traveled the northern part of Alberta and on to the Arctic Ocean in the late 1700s...
