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Alexander Mackenzie: Pass Scotland
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Alexander Mackenzie was born in Scotland. He moved to the American colonies when he was 10 years old. He began work for the North West Company in 1774. He was given the job of exploring new land in search of fur supplies. He made several expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage. On his first trip he travelled down a 450 km river, which was later named after him.
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Alexander MacKenzie was born in 1796, in the village of Contin (near Dingwall) in the northern Highlands of Scotland. In 1808, at the age of 12, in 1808, he emigrated to Pictou, following his older brothers to the New world after their parents' deaths in Scotland. Unlike his eldest brother Donald, who farmed at Four Mile Brook for the remainder of his life, Alexander apprenticed himself in commerce in Pictou until the opportunity arose for him to take over the business of Robert MacKay, a lumber and general merchant in River John. MacKay was one of many who succumbed, in 1825, to the widespread economic depression from which there had been no relief since the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
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Mackenzie was born in Stornoway on the isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. In 1774 his family moved to New York, and then to Montreal in 1776 during the American Revolution. In 1779 he obtained a job with the North West Company, on whose behalf he travelled to Lake Athabasca and founded Fort Chipewyan in 1788. He was sent to replace Peter Pond, a partner in the North West Company. From Pond he learned that the First Nations people understood that the local rivers flowed to the northwest. Acting on this information he set out by canoe and discovered the Mackenzie River on July 10, 1789, following it to its mouth in the hope of finding the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean.
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The first European to make the trek across the North American continent was Alexander Mackenzie as he searched for the Northwest Passage. Mackenzie's trek in 1793, preceded the famous Lewis and Clark expedition by twelve years. Alexander Mackenzie, who was born in Scotland in 1764, worked in the fur trade business for the North West Company, and by the year 1779 he was in command of the Athabasca country. Mackenzie made Fort Chipewyan on the shores of Lake Athabasca the base for exploring a water route to the Pacific.
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Alexander and his family sailed to New York because they were poor in Scotland. But there was a war in New York so they moved to Montreal. That was when Alexander became interested in fur trading and exploring and joined the North West Company. In 1789, he set off to northwest Alberta in a canoe and his goal was to find the Pacific Ocean, but instead he found the Arctic Ocean. He went back to England to learn about navigation.
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Mackenzie wrote a book about his travels that brought him fame and fortune. He became a celebrity in Britain and, in 1802, King George III knighted him for his outstanding Canadian explorations. Mackenzie died in 1820 and was buried in Avoch, near Inverness, Scotland.
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