Of his famous journey — in a birch bark canoe – Mackenzie wrote:
“this favourite project of my own ambition.”
A fur trader’s canoe was no ordinary vessel. He spoke highly of his own, which he variously described in the following ways:
“At the same time she was so light, that two men could carry her on a good road three or four miles without resting.”
“Her dimensions were twenty-five feet long within, exclusive of the curves of stem and stern…”
“In this slender vessel, we shipped provisions, goods for presents, arms, ammunition, and baggage, to the weight of three thousand pounds, and an equipage of ten people.”
As a young man, and even later on in life, most found Mackenzie handsome and rugged. Apparently he found himself this way too, as he once wrote about himself:
“a constitution and frame of body equal to the most arduous undertakings.”
In the summer of 1793, Mackenzie was to write a most famous inscription on a rock, with a mixture of vermilion in melted grease. He wrote simply this:
“Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.”
For whatever reason, Mackenzie was convinced to enter the political arena. So in June of 1804, he was elected to represent the county of Huntingdon in the House of Assembly of Lower Canada. While keeping in the game for a few years, he attended only one session. He explained once to his cousin, early on in his political career that he was:
“heartily tired of Legislation.”
😀 ty for project help!!!