Sir Alexander Mackenzie

Although some Canadian territories were first settled in the early 1600s, a Scot named Sir Alexander Mackenzie became the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean overland, a distance of some 5000 miles.

Alexander Mackenzie was born on the Isle of Lewis in 1764. At 10 years old Alexander emigrated to Canada with his family. At 15, he began working for the North West Company.

In 1789, Mackenzie volunteered to search for an overland route across the Rocky Mountains. He hoped to reach the Pacific Ocean. He followed a river from the west end of Great Slave Lake but the river began winding north. In seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean, Mackenzie had found the Arctic instead.

Alexander Mackenzie headed south, deflated and exhausted. He realised that he needed to learn navigational and mapping techniques, so sailed to Britain to study navigation, surveying and astronomy. In 1793, he was ready to try again. This time, they followed the Peace River west by canoe.

Mackenzie enlisted the aid of some of the Carrier Sekani Indians who guided him down the Parsnip river and overland until they reached the Fraser River. When the Fraser River began heading south, Mackenzie feared a repeat of his earlier expedition and chose instead to cut west over land.

Mackenzie's guides took them along a trading path traditionally used by the Carrier natives for trading grease, which he promptly named 'the Alexander Mackenzie trail'. They finally reached Dean Channel, a Pacific inlet, on 22 July 1793.

His career in the fur trade and as an explorer made Alexander Mackenzie a wealthy man.

In 1799 Mackenzie returned to Britain and published a book on his adventures. He received a knighthood in 1802. Ten years later Sir Alexander Mackenzie went back to Scotland, retiring to Avoch, near Inverness, where he remained until his death in 1820. Sir Alexander Mackenzie is buried in the old parish churchyard in Avoch.