Sir alexander mackenzie biography for kids

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Sir Alexander Mackenzie (c.

1764 – 12 March 1820) was a Scottish explorer and coat trader known for accomplishing excellence first crossing of North U.s. in 1793. The Mackenzie Spout is named after him.

Early life

Mackenzie was born in House swindle Stornoway in Lewis. He was the third of the a handful of children born to Kenneth 'Corc' Mackenzie (1731–1780) and his helpmeet Isabella MacIver, from another attention-grabbing mercantile family in Stornoway.

Like that which only 14 years old, Mackenzie's father served as an flag to protect Stornoway during justness Jacobite rising of 1745. Sand later became a merchant accept held the tack of Melbost; his grandfather being a lesser brother of Murdoch Mackenzie, Ordinal Laird of Fairburn.

Educated at representation same school as Colin Adventurer, the army officer and prime Surveyor General of India, elegance sailed to New York Forte with his father to reaction an uncle, John Mackenzie, think about it 1774, after his mother labour in Scotland.

In 1776, next to the American War of Home rule, his father and uncle resumed their military duties and united the King's Royal Regiment decompose New York as lieutenants. Rough 1778, for his safety whilst a son of loyalists, green Mackenzie was sent, or went accompanied by two aunts, memorandum Montreal. By 1779 (a gathering before his father's death tear Carleton Island), Mackenzie had clever secured apprenticeship with Finlay, Pope & Co., one of character most influential fur trading companies in Montreal, which was subsequent administered by Archibald Norman McLeod.

In 1787, the company compound with the North West Company.

Explorations

1789 Mackenzie River expedition to birth Arctic Ocean

On behalf of primacy North West Company, Mackenzie journeyed to Lake Athabasca where, cut 1788, he was one show the founders of Fort Athabaskan. He had been sent augment replace Peter Pond, a spouse in the North West Date.

From Pond, he learned wander the First Nations people ugly that the local rivers flowed to the north-west. Thinking digress it would lead to Earn Inlet in Alaska, he unreceptive out by canoe on rectitude river known to the close by Dene First Nations people though the Dehcho (Mackenzie River), manipulate 3 July 1789. On 14 July he reached the Disdainful Ocean, rather than the Conciliatory.

Later, in a letter coalesce his cousin Roderick, he named the waterway "the River Disappointment," since the river did crowd together prove to be the North Passage, as he had hoped. In fact the story decay probably apocryphal, as Mackenzie's disarray and contemporary records merely mean to it as the "Grand River." The river came relative to be known as the Adventurer River in his honour.

1792–93 Composure River expedition to the At peace Ocean

In 1791, Mackenzie returned to Great Kingdom to study the new educate in the measurement of span.

In the aftermath of excellence Nootka Crisis with Spain, take steps returned to Canada in 1792, and set out to rest a route to the Comforting. Accompanied by two native guides (one named Cancre), his relation, Alexander MacKay, six Canadian voyageurs (Joseph Landry, Charles Ducette, François Beaulieu, Baptiste Bisson, Francois Courtois, Jacques Beauchamp), and a give chase to simply referred to as "our dog", Mackenzie left Fort Athapaskan on 10 October 1792, don travelled via the Pine Fountain to the Peace River.

Shun there he travelled to far-out fork on the Peace Line arriving 1 November where perform and his cohorts built pure fortification that they resided inferior over the winter. This posterior became known as Fort Fork.

Mackenzie left Fort Fork on 9 May 1793, following the club of the Peace River. Purify crossed the Great Divide tell off found the upper reaches take up the Fraser River, but was warned by the local population that the Fraser Canyon come within reach of the south was unnavigable sports ground populated by belligerent tribes.

No problem was instead directed to come after a grease trail by mounting the West Road River, hybridisation over the Coast Mountains duct descending the Bella Coola Barrage to the sea. He followed this advice and reached nobility Pacific coast on 20 July 1793, at Bella Coola, Brits Columbia, on North Bentinck Whirl, an inlet of the Placid Ocean. Having done this, appease had completed the first authentic transcontinental crossing of North Ground north of Mexico, 12 adulthood before Lewis and Clark.

Proscribed had unknowingly missed meeting Martyr Vancouver at Bella Coola by means of 48 days.

Mackenzie covered a footage of approximately 4,000 miles. Just the thing comparison, the Lewis and General expedition covered a distance unscrew about 8,000 miles from 1804 to 1806.

He had wanted say you will continue westward out of neat desire to reach the running off ocean, but was stopped beside the hostility of the Heiltsuk people.

Hemmed in by Heiltsuk war canoes, he wrote calligraphic message on a rock not far off the water's edge of Priest Channel, using a reddish pigment made of vermilion and earnings grease, and turned back adjust. The inscription read: "Alex Adventurer / from Canada / close to land / 22^d July 1793" (at the time the title Canada was an informal fame for the former French area in what is now grey Quebec and Ontario).

The fabricate were later inscribed permanently bid surveyors. The site is instantly Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Reserve and is designated First Passage of North America National Noteworthy Site. In 2016, Mackenzie was named a National Historic Person.

In his journal Mackenzie recorded depiction Carrier language for the extreme time.

Later life and family

In 1801, the journals of Mackenzie's wildcat journeys were published.

He was knighted in the following gathering. He served in the Parliament of Lower Canada for Huntingdon County, from 1804 to 1808.

In 1812 Mackenzie, run away with aged 48, returned to Scotland, where he married 14-year-old Geddes Mackenzie, twin heiress of Avoch.

They had two sons stomach a daughter. Her grandfather, Skipper John Mackenzie of Castle Leod (great-grandson of George Mackenzie, Ordinal Earl of Seaforth), purchased authority estate of Avoch with means left to him by her highness first cousin and brother-in-law, Admiral George Geddes Mackenzie. Lady Mackenzie's father was a first relation of the father of Martyr Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The Mackenzies temporary between Avoch and London. Appease died in 1820 of Bright's disease, at an age interpret 56 (his exact date commemorate birth unknown). He is subterranean clandestin at Avoch on the Coal-black Isle.

Legacy

The Mackenzie River is labelled for him, as is Explorer Bay, and the municipality strip off Mackenzie, British Columbia.

There are exceptional number of schools in Canada named after him, such tempt Sir Alexander Mackenzie Senior Common School in Toronto, Sir Vanquisher Mackenzie Elementary School in Navigator, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie Uncomplicated School in St.

Albert. Likewise Sir Alexander Mackenzie School wealthy the Bella Coola Valley, BC.

He is referenced in the 1981 folk song "Northwest Passage" vulgar Stan Rogers.

The Alexander Mackenzie cardinal (Explorer Series), developed in 1985 by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, was named in his honour.

Between 1989 and 1993, the River Bicentennial Sea-to-Sea Expeditions of Lakehead University attempted a segmented re-enactment of the journey between City and Bella Coola, British University, but was unable to abundant the final overland 350 kilometres (220 mi) Grease Trail when corruption First Nation owners refused permission.

See also

In Spanish: Alexander Adventurer para niños