as to what the rivers and forests contained. Of all the people brought in contact with the American Indians, the French were the most successful in getting and holding his good will.
Indians had no doubt crossed the continent from the Ohio river to the Pacific ocean. M. La Page du Pratz, in his history of Louisiana, gives a long account of an Indian having become endued with a burning desire to find out from whence came the American Indians, crossed the continent from Natchez on the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean and then returned. And there may have been others. We have authentic history to prove that Sacajawea (the blind woman of the Lewis and Clark expedition) crossed the mountains from the valley of the Snake river to the Mississippi, and remembered the country well enough to guide that expedition back over the same route. But explorations of this kind prove nothing to our purpose—the development of the country.
We come now to the first white man that ever crossed the Rocky mountains from the east to the west for a great purpose, and set foot on the shores of the Pacific ocean. He was neither French, English, or American—but Scotch, and Alexander MacKenzie was his name. He was a native of Iverness, knighted by George III, for distinguished services, migrated to Canada, and entered the service of a fur trader in the year 1779, while yet a young man. and while the British were in the midst of their fight with Washington and his rebels. This Scotchman possessed every qualification to make him a successful leader and governor of men; a fine mind, clear head, strong muscular body, lithe and active, great resolution, invincible courage, tireless and patient energy, with the capacity to comprehend and manage all sorts of conditions of men. Remaining in the fur trade for five years as a hired man, saving his wages, and, biding his time, he cut loose for himself, and became a partner in the Great Northwest Fur company, which to distingush it from others, was known as the Canada company; for many years the most prosperous and aggressive of all the fur traders.
The great interior of northwest America, was at that time but little known. In fact, nothing was known of this vast region beyond the incomprehensible accounts of roving Indians and the meagre reports of adventuresome trappers. It was just such a state of incomprehension and imperfect knowledge of a vast country filled with great riches, as appealed to the keen apprehension and profound mind of Alexander MacKenzie, and he resolved to find out the great secrets which the boundless forests beyond Canada contained. To prepare himself for this self-appointed task, he studied astronomy enough to find his way in untraveled regions, by the guidance of the stars, and to take care of himself and men in all sorts and conditions of circumstances in distant explorations by land.
The trappers and fur traders had gradually worked west and north from the upper end of Lake Superior until they had reached the western end of Lake Athabasca, where Peace river coming west from an opening in the Rocky mountains, discharges its waters into channels which carry it to the Arctic ocean. MacKenzie knew that up to that point, clear back to the Mississippi, there was no Strait of Anian, or water course from the east side of the Rocky mountains to the Pacific ocean, and that if he would follow that water, then running due north, it would take him either into the great frozen sea of the north, in which case he would find the Strait of Anian if there was one, or the water would turn west at some point short of the Arctic sea, and carry them to the Pacific. So, that with a birch bark canoe, four Canadians (two with their wives) and two smaller canoes with English Chief, and Indian, and his family, and followers of MacKenzie set out on June 3rd, 1789, to float down with the current of great Slave river into Great Slave lake and thence on down, down, north, wherever the waters took them until they had solved the great mystery of the unknown Arctic. Passing from one lake to another, hunting, fishing, trapping as they went, the adventurous party finally in the month of July, found themselves in the Arctic ocean where they chased the whales and paddled
