Re: Alexander MacKenzie - Canadian Explorer
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In reply to:
Alexander MacKenzie - Canadian Explorer
11/11/99
I hope this isn't too redundant.
The book First Man West (University of California Press, 1962) which is a modernizantion of Alexander Mackenzie's book Voyages from Montreal through the Continent of North America states in the prologue:
Mackenzie was to become one of the great figures in North American exploration, but we are not even sure when he was born and we know little about his early life.He was born at Stornoway on the Island of Lewis, in Scotland, probably in 1764.His parents were Kenneth Mackenzie and Isabella Maciver.He had an older brother and two sisters.After his mother died his father took him and two aunts to New York, where his mother's brother John Maciver was a well-to-do merchant.They arrived in 1774, but they found the colonies in revolutionary turmoil.The next year young Alexander's father and uncle joined the British army, and his aunts took him to old Johnstown, New York (probably the present village of Scotch Bush).By 1778 the war was getting too close, and Alexander was sent to Montreal for safety.He attended school there briefly, but the next year, when sixteen, he entered the firm of Gregory and Macleod as a clerk in their Montreal warehouse.
After five years with Gregory and Macleod in Montreal, Mackenzie was sent to Detroit to trade.This was in 1784, when he was twenty.It was his first independent venture, his first experience in dealing with Indians, his first trip west.It was the beginning of the long road that would lead him to wealth and fame and power, and perhaps to the illness that eventually killed him.
*** end of quote ***
From there Mackenzie went to Grand Portage, Churchill River, and after the killing of the Athabaska representitive of the XY Company by the Northwest Company (Peter Pond) men - which forced the merger of the Northwest Company and the XY Company - Mackenzie was sent to Athabaska and with the influence and guidance of Peter Pondplanned and fulfilled his journey to the Pacific Coast.
Mackenzie also had a cousin Roderick Mackenzie who was also in the fur trade with the North West Company in Canada.
History Troll:Some (not me) argue that Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first to cross North America by land when in September of 1513 he crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.
His book is well worth reading.I have a Hurtig facsimile reprint.
Hope this helps.... sorry for any tpyos....
Dave Chapman
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ps. If you wish to reply to me, please E-Mail as I don't frequent this forum.