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Alexander Mackenzie: Arctic Ocean
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Alexander Mackenzie was born in Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, in 1764. His family emigrated to North America when he was 12. Mackenzie worked for the North West Company as a fur trapper and trader and became convinced that there had to be a river route to the Pacific and set out to find it. On his first trip in 1789 he followed a river which the local indians called the "Big River". It was later to be called the Mackenzie River but instead of reaching the Pacific it ended up in the Arctic.
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A young Scotsman engaged in the fur trade out of Montreal, Mackenzie made his epic journey across the continent without any of the governmental financial backing and support given to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. In 1787, he was assigned to the British North West Company's fur trading post in what is now northern Alberta. Two years later, he led a small expedition north to the Great Slave Lake where he discovered the westward flowing river that now bears his name. To Mackenzie's disappointment, he discovered that the river soon turned north and led to the Arctic Ocean rather than the Pacific.
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In 1772 Alexander Mackenzie set off in search of an overland route from Quebec to the Pacific Ocean. Guided by members of First Nation Bands, he and his party followed an ancient grease trail from the mouth of the Blackwater River into the Bella Coola Valley.
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Eventually, Mackenzie reached the Pacific Ocean by way of the Bella Coola River and Bentinck Arm on July 20th, 1793. Exhausted, the party spent the night of July 22nd on a rock,and started east the following day. They reached their starting point at Fort Fork on August 24th, 1793.
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Mackenzie set out from Fort Chipewyan on the Athabasca River in 1789 to test Pond’s theory. After an arduous 2500 km canoe trip he found himself at a colossal dead end, for the river flowed to the Arctic, not the Pacific, Ocean.
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