1805

In 1805 Simon Fraser [1776–1862] of the North West Company [1779–1821] followed the same route Mackenzie took in 1793 across the Continental Divide. Fraser established several fur-trading posts in north-central British Columbia, an area he named “New Caledonia.”

June 12, 1793

The second expedition of Alexander Mackenzie [1764–1820] in search of a route to the Pacific Ocean travelled from Fork Fort upstream on the Peace River, took the fork up the Parsnip River, and on 12 June 12 1793 crossed the Continental Divide through an an unnamed pass.

West of the pass, they entered the drainage of the Fraser River via a creek that Mackenzie called Bad River which led to what we now call the McGregor River and so to the Fraser and the Pacific Ocean. Mackenzie did not reach the mouth of the Fraser, but turned west across the coast mountains and arrived at the ocean near Bella Coola.

It was not a feasible route for the purposes of the fur trade.

October 1792

Undaunted by his failure to reach the Pacific Ocean in 1789, Alexander Mackenzie [1764–1820] planned a second expedition, moving north-west from Fort Chipewyan to the newly-established Fork Fort on the Peace River in October 1792. He wintered there until May 1793, when he began the historic trek across the Continental Divide to the Pacific.

July 14, 1789

On June 3, 1789, Alexander Mackenzie [1764–1820] set out from Fort Chipewyan on behalf of the North West Company, hoping to find a route to the Pacific Ocean for the fur trade. In early July the group reached the delta of the river that now bears his name, the Mackenzie River, flowing into the Arctic Ocean.

Fur trader Peter Pond [1793–1807], a founding member of the North West Company, was in charge of the Athabasca department until the spring of 1788 when Mackenzie took charge.

He was to succeed Pond as explorer as well as trader, and was soon preparing to descend the large river (now the Mackenzie) that flows out of Great Slave Lake.

Mackenzie had been in charge of the Athabasca Department since the previous year, and he soon made preparations to descent the large river that flows out of Great Slave Lake.

Mackenzie’s headquarters in Athabasca had been at what became known as the “old establishment,” founded by Pond in 1778 some 40 miles up the Athabasca River. In 1788 he sent his cousin Roderick, now serving with him, to build the first Fort Chipewyan, on the south shore of Lake Athabasca, where he joined him shortly before Christmas. It was from this new post that Mackenzie set out on his first voyage of discovery on 3 June 1789. His party consisted of four French Canadian voyageurs, a young German, whose presence is unexplained, a Chipewyan Indian known as English Chief*, and sundry native wives and retainers.

Mackenzie wrote in his journal on 10 July, when only two days distant from the sea, “being certain that my going further in this Direction will not answer the Purpose of which the Voyage was intended, as it is evident these Waters must empty themselves into the Northern Ocean [1].