Portrait - Fabulous Western Canada: Capture the Excitement of the Great West! - page 8

ALEXANDER MACKENZIE

Alexander Mackenzie was born in Scot-
land in 1764. He immigrated to New
York in 1774 with his father, who joined
the British Army while the American War
of Independence was being waged. After
the death of his mother in 1778, he was
sent to Montréal, a major fur trade hub.
Infl uenced by what he saw, he left school
in 1779 to become a fur trader himself.

He cut his teeth in the trade, and then
in 1784 the company he was working
for sent him to Detroit as a merchant.
Mackenzie showed leadership and business acumen, and the com-
pany offered him a partnership to move into Aboriginal territory —
Northwestern Canada — in the spring of 1785.

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Alexander Mackenzie.
© Glenbow Archives; NA-1733-1

Mackenzie's company merged with the North West Company, and
in 1788 he was sent to the Athabasca region, in the northern part of
what is now Alberta.

In 1789, Mackenzie's fi rst expedition left from Fort Chipewyan on the
Athabasca River. Eight hundred and fi fty kilometres into his descent
of the Athabasca River, Mackenzie realized that it led to a larger river
fl owing toward the Arctic Ocean, and not the Pacifi c, after a perilous
1,650-km journey. This major river, which he spent two weeks fol-
lowing until its end, is now called the Mackenzie River in his honour.

In 1792, Mackenzie set out on a second expedition. Heeding the
advice of Aboriginal acquaintances, this time he tried his luck on the
Peace River. Mackenzie and his fellow travellers crossed lakes and
rivers, facing treacherous rapids and diffi cult portages and stopping
often to patch their heavily laden canoe. He then had to cross part
of the territory by land, ending up at the Bella Coola River, by which
they reached the Pacifi c Ocean in July 1793.

In 1802, Mackenzie became Sir Alexander Mackenzie. A short while
later, he returned to Scotland, where he married and fathered three
children. Sir Alexander Mackenzie died in 1820.