The first known person to have crossed the American continent north of Mexico was Alexander Mackenzie. His exploits, some say, would later inspire and inform the Lewis and Clarke expedition that was undertaken at the behest of Thomas Jefferson, who apparently read the accounts of Mr. Mackenzie’s journeys. Thirteen years earlier, Mackenzie had traversed the northern part of the continent from the Atlantic to the unexplored Pacific, an event that he memorialized on a rock with grease and vermillion:
Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.
Screenshot from video
Nowadays one can easily travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via trains, planes, and automobiles. After the grand prairies in the west, the rocky mountains loom with their majestic forests, snowcapped tips, icy lakes, and emerald rivers glistening as they happily meander among the rocks. Beyond the mountain ranges, the land flattens out and meets the Pacific ocean.
Map of Athabasca region. Image provided under the CC Attribution 2.0 generic license courtesy of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections, who in no way endorse any of my sheninagans
In the late 18th century, these lands were still unexplored by Europeans. The last fur-trading outposts reached to what is now the province of Alberta in the Athabasca region of the mid-west. Beyond, lay the wilderness and unknown territories where a passage to the Pacific was to be found, in theory. The dangers (real and imagined) were innumerable. Wolves, bears, cougars, river rapids, harsh weather, ice, and other possibly lethal obstacles awaited any would-be explorer. There were also many indigenous tribes who did not like strangers in their territories, let alone strange foreign men with pale skin. For this reason, Mr. Mackenzie- who was born in Scotland but now found himself at the edge of the new world- assembled a small skillful team without whom the trek would not have been possible, and included indigenous guides.
But how did he get this idea in the first place? Apparently, during his stay in one of the outposts on the western frontier, Mackenzie met a loose canon by name of Peter Pond. An adventurer himself, Peter Pond filled the young Mackenzie with fantastic ideas about a great river that flowed west towards the Pacific ocean. Impressed by Peter Pond’s maps, designed with the aid of local native knowledge according to Pond, Mackenzie took up the quest to find a passage to the Pacific.
Peter Pond map of the Athabasca region available in the public domain
Funded by his company, Mr. Mackenzie convinced a crew that included two French-Canadian fur traders (and their two native wives) who had expertise in canoeing and wilderness survival; a native chief, his two wives, and children; a mysterious German; and so on. Each one of them possessed unique skills in outdoor survival.
With Peter Pond maps in hand, they set out to find the great river, which was said to be in Slave Lake, today's northern Alberta. Getting there was no easy task. They had to carry all their survival gear in canoes, and when it was not possible to continue down the river, they would have to carry the canoes through swamps and difficult terrain.
Along they way, they encountered various tribes who had never seen Europeans before and did not necessarily welcome them with open arms but with clubs, spears, bows, and daggers.
Thankfully, the presence of the natives in the expeditionary group put the nervous locals at ease, especially because the natives in the party were able to convey their intentions through their dialects and gestures.
Mackenzie gifted these new encountered tribes with tools like awls, flints, steel knives, axes, and beads. The people usually became friendly and gave them warnings not to go further or they would encounter violent people, animals, and even monsters. Often, their knowledge was good about their immediate territory but they did not seem to venture out beyond certain boundaries, and so their knowledge of far distances was limited, as Mackenzie wrote:
Suffice it to say that they would wish to make us believe that it would be several winters before getting to sea.
Mackenzie took all their warnings seriously. This was an unexplored frontier after all, and the possibility of monsters was very real in their belief system. He wrote down his observations in his journal that he faithfully filled up. He even taught himself a few words of the languages spoken in the region. His journal included the descriptions of people, plants, and animals that had never been seen before like certain species of mountain sheep, goats, and marmots along with astronomical observations necessary for wayfinding.
Onward they trekked following a great river through snow, fog, storms, and other dangers that threatened to derail their quest to reach the Pacific. At one point, the sun failed to set in the sky, and to Mackenzie’s amazement, he realized that the river that Peter Pond had drawn in his map did not flow west but north. The ragged band of explorers had reached the Arctic ocean instead of the Pacific, as evidenced by the fact that the sun did not set below the horizon. This in itself was a historic accomplishment, and the river is now called the Mackenzie river in his honour, but at that moment- observing the otherworldly ice flows across the water that indicated they had gone off course- Mackenzie christened it, River Disappointment.
On the way back, the team encountered a group of natives that spoke of another great river that flowed westward and passed through the lands of strange people, who were better left alone. Mackenzie resolved to try again, but not before completing a side quest in London, England where he traveled to update his navigation and map-making skills. Being in London is said to have been a torture for the outdoors man, so he focused on completing his studies as quickly as possible, and soon grabbed the next ship back to his adopted land in the great white north.
Again, he put together an agile but skillful team with the aim of reaching the Pacific. His navigation and map-making instruments were not state of the art but he was much better prepared than in the previous expedition. Soon, Mr. Mackenzie and his team set out to find a passage to the Pacific.
The awe inspiring and gargantuan size of the mountains in Alberta and British Columbia cannot be understated. Having experienced some mountain trekking in this area of BC, it’s unfathomable to me how someone can make a trip through that rugged and difficult terrain filled with many dangers from the living and non-living.
It wasn’t long before the group got into trouble and at one point, their canoe crashed against the river boulders, and they had to salvage what they could then build a new canoe to continue.
Wolves, grizzly bears, and unwelcoming tribes met them every step of the way. Through it all, Mackenzie motivated his team to think of “the honour of conquering disasters, and the disgrace that would attend them on their return home” should they fail in their quest. To have “courage and resolution.” The group was committed in spite of the hardships. They had come so far together. With this superhuman perseverance, they pushed through all obstacles until finally their efforts paid off when they reached the Pacific on July 19, 1793.
Afterwards, Alexander Mackenzie was knighted. He championed the idea of joining the companies across the west, and thus, it is believed to have been one of the early conceptualizations of Canada as a united country.
Making The Video
With that lengthy preamble out of the way, I want to discuss the design and development of this video that was inspired by the theme of Memories in the Alien Art Hive and NFT Showroom challenge. I am not formally entering because I’m not sure about some stuff 😉, but I got the idea to work with the cultural memories of the country, which has undergone different historical periods. The more I read about Mr. Mackenzie’s adventures, the more amazed I became. How is this not a Hollywood blockbuster, I asked myself?
At this point, I only had a vague idea about what I wanted to do, so I pencil-sketched several scenes that stood out in my mind. I brainstormed different possibilities but slowly the narrative began to center around the vivid imagery from the adventure, as described in the introduction to this post. I jotted down notes and a few prompts by hand then refined them later. I wanted to create a cinematic effect with the scenes that highlighted the sense of wonder and the thrill of exploration.
AI Art
Images from the Mackenzie era are not existent because photography had not yet been invented in the late 1700s. There were camera obscuras and soon there would be daguerreotypes but true photography would come later. I found a few images that were in the public domain related to Alexander Mackenzie and used those for inspiration, decoration, and AI art. These images included a couple of maps of North America drawn in Mr. Mackenzie’s time.
There are no specific images of Alexander Mackenzie himself per se. So I used Grok Imagine to manipulate a painting available on his Wikipedia page. I prompted Grok to rotate the camera around this figure, so Mr. Mackenzie could be seen from an over-the-shoulder angle, seen on the following images.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie original. Public Domain image
Rotated viewpoint with Grok Imagine
I used this as the reference image for the creation of several videos in which he appears. The other videos I created directly without a reference image.
With the prompts, I attempted to convey scenes of Mackenzie’s travels but most important the spirit of exploration in the face of insurmountable obstacles. I was not aiming for historical accuracy. For example, his companions are missing. His travels would not have been possible without his merry band of explorers, who brought their soft and hard skills, as well as their courage and determination, on the historic journeys.
MS Clipchamp work area
I put the video together in MS Clipchamp using effects and media (such as the audio) found in the app. I attempted to give the art and the reel a vintage feel, mixing still images and combining them with motion. I hope you enjoyed the results.
Thank you!
Resources
Alexander Mackenzie on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mackenzie_(explorer)
Alexander Mackenzie on NWT Timeline:
https://www.nwttimeline.ca/stories/1789-sir-alexander-mackenzie/
First Across North America: Alexander Mackenzie's Quest in Adam Shoalt's (2017) A History of Canada in Ten Maps. Penguin Random House Canada.
Mackenzie, Sir Alexander on Dictionary of Canadian Biography: https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mackenzie_alexander_5E.html
Sir Alexander Mackenzie in The Canadian Encyclopedia: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-alexander-mackenzie-explorer
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