Alexander Mackenzie (explorer)

Sir Alexander Mackenzie was a Scottish explorer. He is known for his overland crossing of what is now Canada to reach the Pacific Ocean in 1793. This was the first east to west crossing of North America north of Mexico and preceded the Lewis and Clark expedition byyears.

In 1764, Mackenzie was born at Luskentyre House in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. He was the third of the four children born to Kenneth Corc Mackenzie and his wife Isabella MacIver, from another prominent mercantile family in Stornoway. When only fourteen years old, Mackenzies father served as an ensign to protect Stornoway during the Jacobite rising of 1745. He later became a merchant and held the tack of Melbost his grandfather being a younger brother of Murdoch Mackenzie, 6th Laird of Fairburn.

Source: Wikipedia