The Scottish explorer, fur trader, and businessman Sir Alexander Mackenzie (ca. 1764-1820) was perhaps the most venturesome of all the explorers of the Northwest of North America. He was the first to travel overland to the Pacific Coast.

Alexander Mackenzie was born near Stornoway on Lewis Island. Upon the death of his mother, his father took him to New York in 1774. During the American Revolution his father fought as a loyalist, and he sent Alexander to safety in Montreal. A brief period of schooling was followed by his entry as a clerk into the trading firm of Gregory and McLeod. He remained there for 5 years and in 1784 went to Detroit as a trader for the company.

The next year Mackenzie was offered a partnership in the XY Company if he would go to the Saskatchewan River to join the competition with the North West Company in the fur...