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Explorers of Canada, Part XXV: Sir Alexander Mackenzie

© David Newman

Alexander Mackenzie may bring up two ideas when said to Canadian historians. Either they will think of a man who became Canada's second Prime Minister (and first Liberal Prime Minister) or they will think of another Scots-Canadian Alexander Mackenzie, the explorer.

This second Alexander Mackenzie (although first in terms of historical chronology) was born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland, in the year 1764. He came to Canada in 1774, settling in Montreal, and a few years later was hired as a clerk in the fur trade. He worked hard and achieved success becoming a wintering partner in the North West Company, rival of the Hudson's Bay Company, in less then a decade.

Under the supervision of fur trader Peter Pond, Mackenzie was posted at Fort Chipewyan. On June 8, 1789, Mackenzie departed from the post with guide Laurent Leroux, their two wives, five voyageurs (French Canadians), two of their wives, and two native youths. They followed a river that flowed out of Great Slave Lake, yet instead of reaching the Pacific Ocean as they wished, they ended up in the Beauford Sea. Mackenzie, realising he wasn't quite good enough for such an operation, gave up his dream of finding the Northwest Passage just yet and eventually returned to England for more cources in astronomy and cartography. In 1792 he returned to Canada to prepare his voyage at Fort Fork.

In May of 1794 he departed with six voyageurs and two natives, travelling through the Rocky Mountains by foot and canoe. The party reached the Pacific near Bella Coola, British Columbia. He became the first European to reach the Pacific (north of Mexico, of course, which isn't exactly the same challenge), beating Americans Lewis and Clark by a decade.

Later that year he returned to Grand Portage, and although his voyages little served the fur trade as his passage was much too dangerous for a profitable trading route, he was commended on his work.

King George III eventually knighted him for his work, in 1802, after he had published his journals, Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, in the Years, 1789 and 1793, the previous year. In 1799 Mackenzie had retired from the North West Company. In 1804, he began serving in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, which he served until 1808. He died in England in 1820.

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