Mackenzie (1789-1793)

Mackenzie, Alexander (1764-1820). Voyages from Montreal [...] to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans; in the Years 1789 and 1793. London: R. Noble, 1801.

A man of extraordinary physical strength, determination and resistance, Alexander Mackenzie was only 29 when he performed the remarkable feat that made him famous: the first crossing of the American continent north of Mexico.

Born in Scotland in 1764, Mackenzie emigrated with his father to New York at the age of 10. In 1779 he entered the service of a Montreal firm engaged in the fur trade in the West. After working for five years in the company's Montreal office, he obtained a share in the business and became a trader in the West. In 1788 he was put in charge of trade in the Athabasca region and settled at Fort Chipewyan on the south shore of Lake Athabasca. This was his staging point for the two expeditions which finally enabled him to reach the Pacific.

Mackenzie left on his first voyage of exploration on June 3, 1789. After crossing the Great Slave Lake, the expedition followed the river that today bears his name to its mouth in the Arctic Ocean and then returned to Fort Chipewyan on September 12. This voyage of over 5000 miles had been accomplished in only 102 days. But Mackenzie was deeply disappointed; even though he had been the first to explore one of the great rivers in the world, he had not attained his objective: the Pacific.

Leaving a second time from Fort Chipewyan on October 10, 1792, Mackenzie managed to cross the Rockies through the pass that also bears his name. On July 17, 1793, he entered the deep Bella Coola gorge and started downriver, and two days later he noted in his journal: "I could see the mouth of the river and that it emptied into a narrow arm of the sea." In these singularly laconic words, he stated that he had finally realized his ambition. On August 24 he was back in Fort Chipewyan.

After this, Mackenzie continued to be active in the fur trade until 1804. In 1805 he went back to London and made only a few brief trips to America, the last one in 1810. Two years later he retired in Scotland, where he died suddenly in March 1820.

The account of his travels, first published in London in 1801, attracted considerable attention: the following year other editions appeared in London, New York and Philadelphia, and a French translation and two German ones were also published that year.