Are Canadians less adventurous than they once were? It’s hard to argue otherwise.
Alexander Mackenzie was only 24 when the North West Company named him chief fur trader at Fort Chipewyan, in what is now Alberta. A few years later, in 1789, he travelled north along what is now known as the Mackenzie River to become the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean overland. Four years later, he crossed the Rocky Mountains and was the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean, beating Americans Merriweather Lewis and William Clark by a full dozen years.
