One popular misconception is that Lewis-and-Clark (referring to the U.S. Corps of Discovery under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark) were the first to travel across North America. The idea that Lewis and Clark were somehow first to cross the continent has two problems. First, there is an arrogant assumption that American Indians did not do any exploring. Second, it ignores the actual history of how the Corps of Discovery came into existence.
The birth of the Corps of Discovery actually began in 1802 when President Thomas Jefferson obtained a copy of the book Travels from Montreal, written by Sir Alexander MacKenzie who had crossed Canada to the Pacific Ocean in 1793. Jefferson and his secretary Meriwether Lewis were inspired by the book and felt that an American expedition should cross the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson saw the book as a blueprint for the British acquisition of western North America and its vast wealth. If the British were to acquire this territory, then the expanding United States would be denied these riches. After reading MacKenzie’s book, Jefferson began to take actions leading to the formation of the Corps of Discovery and their journey across North America.
What Came Before:
In the late eighteenth century, the Canadian fur trade was dominated by two large rivals: the Hudson’s Bay Company, headquartered in London, and the North West Company (known as the Nor’westers), headquartered in Montreal. Since Hudson’s Bay Company’s grant from the Crown gave it exclusive rights over all lands which drained into Hudson’s Bay, the Nor’westers had to travel farther to acquire furs.
In 1787, Nor’Wester Peter Pond showed Alexander MacKenzie a conjectural map he had drawn. Pond, having studied Captain Cook’s charts and having talked with the Athabascan Indians, was convinced that there was a large river flowing west from Great Slave Lake. Pond felt that this river would connect with Cook’s river which flowed into the Pacific. If this were true, it would provide the Nor’westers with a water route to the Pacific which would enhance their fur trade and open up the lucrative Asian markets. According to Pond, he had encountered Indians at Great Slave Lake who had seen ships along the coast and who had trade items of British origin which they had acquired from these ships.
Failure:
Alexander MacKenzie, a wintering partner in the North West Company, realized that Pond’s idea, if true, could provide great riches. In 1789, he set out to find this water route to the Pacific. Traveling in two canoes, the party was guided by a Chipewyan known to the Canadians as English Chief. Unfortunately, the river, known today as the MacKenzie River, flowed north into the Arctic Ocean and thus did not provide a commercial route for the fur trade.
Success:
Undaunted by his failure, MacKenzie set out again in 1793. MacKenzie’s party—a mix of Indians, voyageurs, Scots traders, and a large dog—set off in light canoes from the North West Company trading post at Fort Chipewyan. They encountered a small band of Sekani Indians who sketched for them a crude map showing the location of the “Great River” that flows to the ocean.
The party struggled up the Peace River to a portage that was only 817 paces across a ridge to the Fraser River. Their journey downstream, however, was not an easy one. They encountered numerous Indian nations, some of whom were not particularly enthralled by the Canadian intrusion into their territory, and rapids which could not be navigated.
In spite of difficulties, they reached the Pacific. On a rocky point on King Island, British Columbia, Mackenzie would later report:
“I mixed up some vermilion in melted grease, and inscribed, in large characters, on the South-East face of the rock on which we had slept last night, this brief memorial—‘Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.”
While MacKenzie reached the Pacific, the water route suitable for trade proved to be an illusion. The “great river” that would open up the western trade, the Columbia, lay much farther south. MacKenzie returned to Montreal and eventually to his native Scotland where he wrote the account of his journey. His book got him knighted by the British Crown and launched the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Sir Alexander MacKenzie was the first to cross the continent and produce a written record of the trip.