Mackenzie
Mackenzie names 6 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Mackenzie a river of northwestern Canada
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a river of northwestern Canada. It lies north of the sixtieth parallel. The Peace, the Athabasca, and other sources collect the waters of north Saskatchewan, north Alberta, and northeastern British Columbia . Slave River drains Athabasca Lake into Great Slave Lake , and the Mackenzie carries the waters of Great Slave 1,000 miles northward into the Arctic Ocean. The river was named for Alexander Mackenzie, a native of Inverness, Scotland. Setting out from Montreal in the interest of the Northwest Fur Company, he explored the basin of this river as early as 1789. In 1792 he crossed the Rocky Mountains , and reached the Pacific coast. He was the first white man to reach the Pacific by this route. The river is the largest wholly in the Dominion. At the beginning of the century its basin had a white population of 5,216. The northern portion of the basin belongs to the frozen Arctic waste region. Forests of fir, spruce, and pine, coming under climatic influences similar to those of British Columbia, clothe the mountain spurs of the southwestern region. The central and southern portion has a diversified surface, and would be productive, were it not that the growing season is so short. It is believed that coal and other mineral wealth in large quantities await the miner. At present the Mackenzie region is a land of trappers. It is the most productive fur district in the world. During the summer the great river and its tributaries are navigable for steamboats for a distance of nearly 2,000 miles. Small trading stations have been established at the principal landings. Birch bark canoes take up the journey where the steamer leaves off. They start out from the landings laden with firearms, traps, blankets, ammunition, clothing, tobacco, tea, sugar, bacon, and flour, and return the next season with bales of rich peltry. Money is of little use. Although winter mail routes have been established of late, newspapers and letters are often months old before they are read at outlying camps. The large lakes of the Mackenzie basin are a continuation of the Great Lake system. They lie in the same curve that passes through Lakes Ontario, Huron, Superior, Winnipeg, and Athabasca. Great Bear Lake , the most northerly, is situated on the Arctic Circle . It takes its name from the fact that it is directly under the constellation of Ursa Major, or the Great Bear. It lies at an elevation of 200 feet above the sea. Its waters are clear. It is well stored with fish. Its area is equal to about half that of Scotland. Great Slave Lake is an irregular widening of the Mackenzie River. It is about 50 miles in width and 300 miles in length. Its waters are clear and afford excellent fishing grounds. See Canada
Mackenzie WILLIAM LYON, a Canadian journalist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WILLIAM LYON, a Canadian journalist; born in Dundee, Scotland, March 12, 1795; emigrated to Canada in 1820; and in 1824 established the "Colonial Advocate," first at Queenstown, then at Toronto. There his denunciations of the officials resulted in the partial destruction of his printing office in 1826. In 1828 he was elected to the provincial Parliament for York, but was expelled for libel on the Assembly, and was successively expelled and re-elected till finally the government refused to issue the writ. In 1834 he was elected the first mayor of Toronto, and in 1836 he started the "Constitution." In 1837 he published a virtual declaration of independence in his paper, headed a band of armed insurgents, and demanded of the lieutenant-governor a settlement of all provincial difficulties by a convention. This demand not having been granted, Mackenzie determined to arrest the lieutenant-governor and capture the military stores in Toronto; but being met by a superior force at Montgomery's Hill, 4 miles from the city, the insurgents were put to flight after a brief skirmish in possession of Navy Island in the Niagara river, where he established a provisional government. He was soon, however, compelled to break up his camp, and was afterward sentenced by the United States authorities to 12 months' imprisonment in Rochester, N. Y. On the proclamation of amnesty in 1849 he returned to Canada, and was a member of Parliament from 1850 till 1858. Reforms more radical than those he contended for have since been granted. He died in Toronto, Aug. 28, 1861.
Mackenzie SIR ALEXANDER, a Canadian explorer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR ALEXANDER, a Canadian explorer; born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1755. In the employment of the Northwest Fur Company, he explored the great river named after him from the W. end of Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean (1789). He made another expedition to the W. coast (1792), and was the first white man to cross the Rocky Mountains and reach the Pacific coast. He returned to Great Britain in 1801, and was knighted. He died in Mulnain, near Dunkeld, Scotland, March 11, 1820.
Mackenzie ALEXANDER, a Canadian statesman
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALEXANDER, a Canadian statesman; born in Logierait, Perthshire, Scotland, Jan. 28, 1822; removed to Canada in 1842; in 1852 became editor of a Reform newspaper; represented Lambton in Parliament 1861-1867, and in the Dominion Parliament till 1882; was then elected for East York, and was re-elected in 1887. In 1873 he succeeded Macdonald as premier, and remained at the head of the government till 1878. He published the "Life and Speeches of Hon. George Brown" (1882). He died in Toronto, Canada, April 17, 1892.
Mackenzie SIR MORELL, a Scotch physician
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR MORELL, a Scotch physician; born in Leytonstone, July 7, 1837; was educated at London Medical College, Paris and Vienna; obtained the Jackson prize for diseases of the larynx. In 1887-1888 he was associated with the specialists of Berlin and Vienna in the treatment of the larynx disease of the Emperor Frederick (at first, while he was Crown Prince) of Germany. He was the author of a treatise on "Diseases of the Throat and Nose," etc. He died in London, Feb. 3, 1892.
Mackenzie District of, a district of northwestern Canada
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
District of, a district of northwestern Canada. It extends from the sixtieth parallel of north latitude to the Arctic Ocean, and from the 100th meridian to the Rocky Mountains . It includes half a million square miles of territory, and is inhabited by 5,000 or 6,000 traders, trappers, employes of the Hudson Bay Company , Indians, and Eskimo. With the other Northwest Territories, it is governed by a commissioner and a council of four appointed by the governor-general of Canada.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote in 1910 the Mackenzie basin was "a land of trappers," the most productive fur district in the world, where "money is of little use" and mail arrived months late. Within a generation it was a mineral frontier instead: oil was struck at Norman Wells in 1920 and piped to Whitehorse by the wartime Canol project, and pitchblende found on the shore of Great Bear Lake in 1930 became the Port Radium mine, whose uranium fed the American atomic bomb programme. Roads and aircraft replaced the birchbark canoe — the Mackenzie Highway reached Hay River in 1948, the Dempster Highway opened in 1979, and since 2017 an all-season road has run from Inuvik to the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk. Plans to run a gas pipeline down the valley were halted by the Berger Inquiry in 1977 and finally shelved in 2017; the river is now widely called by its Dene name, Deh Cho, and much of the basin is governed under modern Indigenous land-claim agreements. Of the men, little has changed: Alexander Mackenzie the explorer and the premier of 1873-78 are described much as Collier's had them in 1921, though William Lyon Mackenzie's 1837 rising is now read less as treason than as a step toward responsible government.
Written for this edition, 2026.