Birtupiace oF Sir ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND

Introduction

The first European to cross the North American
continent north of Mexico was Alexander Mackenzie
te cove rds Sir Alexander Mackenzie), one of the partners,

“bourgeois” of the North West Company of Montreal.
His achievement has not been heralded as the work of some
explorers has been and thus it happens that too frequently
the honour that is properly his is wrongly attributed to
others. It seems therefore desirable to state the fact and
to repeat it continually: Alexander Mackenzie was the
first white man to cross the main body of the continent of
North America.

Mackenzie's voyages to the Arctic Ocean and to the
Pacific Ocean are well known. Summaries will be found
in every history of Canada. Although the original edition
of his “Voyages’’ and the early reprints are now quite
rare and expensive, the book was brought within the
reach of every one by a popular-priced edition published
in New York about twenty years ago and republished in
Toronto in 1911. Yet strangely enough many readers
fail to realize that they are not merely reading of an early
journey across the continent—not merely reading of the first
crossing of British North America—but that they are read-
ing of the first crossing of the North American continent.

It is not intended in this short introduction to retell
the story of this pioneer and perilous journey. The
“round, unvarnish’d tale’ of the explorer would lose its

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