First Across the Continent: Sir William Mackenzie

Trevor S. Raymond is a teacher and librarian with the Peel Board of Education and editor of Canadian Holmes.

Alexander Mackenzie emigrated to Canada from Scotland at the age of 12,
in 1774, and became an important figure among the fur traders who spread
into the northwest as rivals of the Hudson’s Bay Company. At the age
of 31, he painted on a rock on the Pacific coast evidence of having
become “First Across the Continent” north of Mexico, 12 years ahead
of the more celebrated Americans Lewis and Clark. Having “opened
Canada to its western destiny,” and at the same time having “robbed
the official circles of British government and geographical science of
one of its greatest, most sought-after prizes” (an easily navigable
northwest passage), Mackenzie returned to the east. “I think it
unpardonable in any man,” he wrote, “to remain in this country who
can afford to leave it.”

Mackenzie was not always a noble figure. His bitter rivalry with Lord
Selkirk helped lead to the massacre at Seven Oaks. Previous biographies
of Mackenzie, Gough writes, “have failed to appreciate one fundamental
fact—that his life in the wilderness was dedicated to one grand
purpose, the making of money.” After becoming a wealthy businessman
and a member of the Lower Canada legislature, Mackenzie returned to
Scotland, where he married a 14-year-old. At the time of his death, in
1820, he was a knight, a laird, a best-selling author, and a very rich
man.

This book, described by its author as “an interpretive reappraisal of
Mackenzie rather than a comprehensive or full biography,” carries no
footnotes, but it does include an extensive annotated bibliography as
well as illustrations and maps. One of the two appendices lists the
extraordinary number of Mackenzie geographic and place names by which we
remember this shrewd, brave, and heroic man—including, of course,
Canada’s longest river, which he charted on his first attempt to reach
the Pacific.