The exact date of Sir Alexander Mackenzie's birth is not accurately known, although it is supposed he was born at Inverness, Scotland, about 1755. He came to North America at an early age and obtained employment in the counting-house of Messrs. Gregory and Co., a connexion of the North-West Fur Company. It was while he was with this company that he obtained the experience and knowledge necessary to his profession of a fur-trader, long before he undertook his arduous and dangerous expeditions to

On presenting this Volume to my Country, it is not necessary to enter into a particular account of those voyages whose journals form the principal part of it, as they will be found, I trust, to explain themselves. It appears, however, to be a duty, which the Public have a right to expect from me, to state the reasons which have influenced me in delaying the publication of them. It has been asserted, that a misunderstanding between a person high in office and myself, was the cause of this procras

The fur trade, from the earliest settlement of Canada, was considered of the first importance to that colony. The country was then so populous, that, in the vicinity of the establishments, the animals whose skins were precious, in a commercial view, soon became very scarce, if not altogether extinct. They were, it is true, hunted at former periods, but merely for food and clothing. The Indians, therefore, to procure the necessary supply, were encouraged, to penetrate into the country, and were g

JUNE, 1789. Wednesday, 3. —We embarked at nine in the morning, at Fort Chepewyan, on the South side of the Lake of the Hills, in latitude 58. 40. North, and longitude 110. 30. West from Greenwich, and compass has sixteen degrees variation East, in a canoe made of birch bark. The crew consisted of four Canadians, two of whom were attended by their wives, and a German; we were accompanied also by an Indian, who had acquired the title of English Chief, and his two wives, in a small canoe, with two

DECEMBER 23, 1792. I this day removed from the tent into the house which had been erected for me, and set all the men to begin the buildings intended for their own habitation. Materials sufficient to erect a range of five houses for them, of about seventeen by twelve feet, were already collected. It would be considered by the inhabitants of a milder climate, as a great evil, to be exposed to the weather at this rigorous season of the year, but these people are inured to it, and it is necessary t