Here on the smooth, protected surface of an overhanging cHfT, the trader-explorer left a memorial of his achievement in the legend: "Alexander Mackenzie from Canada by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety three."
The river down which Mackenzie floated so many days was called by the Indians Tacoutchee Tesse. It must, he argued, flow into the Pacific, and since it trended strongly southward he concluded that it was identical with the river shown on Vancouver's map under the name Columbia. This identification Mackenzie indicated on his map by a dotted line which relates the lower Columbia to the Tacoutchee Tesse.
In fact, Mackenzie had been on Fraser River, which flows into Puget Sound, and not on the upper Columbia at all. But his mistake gave rise to most interesting speculations about the practicability of connecting the fur trade of the Columbia with that of Canada and Hudson Bay. Mackenzie's "Voyages," published in 1801, presents his trading plan in detail.
Mackenzie's plan for consolidating the British North American fur trade. Mackenzie proposed that the Hudson Bay Company and Northwest Company should unite in a single organization to control the fur trade of North America from the parallel of 45° to the pole. The line of communication from the Rocky Mountains by way of Lake Winnipeg and Nelson River to Hudson Bay was so much shorter than the line which ran to Montreal that Hudson Bay at the mouth of Nelson River should be regarded as the proper place
