VOYAGES FROM MONTREAL ON THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, THROUGH THE CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA, TO THE FROZEN AND PACIFIC OCEANS; IN THE YEARS 1789 AND 1793. WITH A PRELIMINARY ACCOUNT OF THE FUR TRADE OF THAT COUNTRY

London: R. Noble for T. Cadell, jun. & W. Davies, Cobbett & Morgan, and W. Creech of Edinburgh, 1801.. [4],viii,cxxxii,412pp. plus stipple-engraved portrait frontispiece of Mackenzie by P. Condé after Thomas Lawrence, three folding engraved maps, and Errata leaf. Half title. Quarto. 20th-century three- quarter calf and marbled boards, spine gilt, leather labels. Minor edge wear. Light occasional foxing, short tears to maps at mounts. An attractive copy in very good condition. Alexander Mackenzie was "the first white man to cross the continent and his journal...is of surpassing interest" (Wagner-Camp). The present work is the first published account of the two exploring expeditions that Mackenzie made on behalf of the North West Company as part of their attempt to break the Hudson's Bay Company's stranglehold on the fur trade. The author was born in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in 1764, came to North America in 1774, was employed as a clerk in the fur trade in 1779, and by 1787 he was a wintering partner in the North West Company, posted at Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca.

Mackenzie set out on his first expedition on June 3, 1789, armed with information and maps provided by fur trader Peter Pond. He had decided to follow a large river flowing west from Great Slave Lake in search of a northwest passage to the Pacific. The expedition was partially successful: on July 13, Mackenzie and his party reached salt water, but it proved to be the Beaufort Sea rather than the Pacific Ocean.

After a further two years in the fur trade in Canada, Mackenzie returned to England in the autumn of 1791 to study navigation and astronomy, as the first expedition had demonstrated to him that he needed more expertise in these areas. He returned to Canada in the spring of 1792 and made his way west to the newly built Fort Fork, near the junction of the Peace and Smoky rivers.

In May 1793, having spent the winter making preparations, Mackenzie left on what was to be his greatest journey. After a difficult passage by canoe and on foot through the Rockies, he and his party arrived at the Pacific near Bella Coola, British Columbia on July 22, 1793. He returned to Grand Portage in 1794 and subsequently to Montreal, where he acted as an agent for the North West Company until 1799, when he retired to England. His great achievement did not receive the wide acknowledgment it deserved until the present work was published, and his subsequent and equally important proposals drawing attention to the importance of the Pacific Coast. In 1802, Mackenzie was knighted by George III and went on to serve as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada from 1804 to 1808. HOWES M133, "b." WHEAT TRANSMISSISSIPPI 251. GRAFF 2630. HILL 1063. LANDE 1317. PEEL 25. PILLING, PROOF-SHEETS 2384. SABIN 43414. WAGNER-CAMP 1:1. STREETER SALE 3653. DNB III, pp.1356-57. REESE, BEST OF THE WEST 22.