MACKENZIE, Alexander, Sir (1764-1820). Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, in the Years 1789 and 1790. London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1801.

4to (264 x 205 mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece, 3 engraved folding maps, one with routes hand-colored in outline. (Slight browning, some offsetting of maps and plate.) Contemporary half calf, marbled boards gilt (rebacked preserving original spine, slightly rubbed). Provenance: Collector's bookplate, a few pencil marks.

FIRST EDITION. Mackenzie, a Scotch-born fur trader, emigrated to North America in 1779; his expeditions, on behalf of the North West Fur Company, were in part an attempt to break up the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly. On his first expedition in 1789, he left Fort Chippewayan on Lake Athabasca for Great Slave Lake and traveled along what is now the Mackenzie River from its source to its mouth, covering 3,000 miles in 120 days before reaching the Arctic Sea. In 1793, he crossed the Rocky Mountains from Fort Chipewyan to the Pacific Coast. Together, these expeditions constitute the first known transcontinental crossing of America north of Mexico. "No writer upon the subject of Indian customs and peculiarities, has given us a more minute, careful and interesting relation of them, as indeed none were better fitted to do, by long experience among them. His investigations...were remarkable for their accuracy; Sir John Franklin more than once expressing his surprise at being able to corroborate their correctness" (Field 967). Graff 2630; Hill p. 187 ("This is the first and finest edition of one of the most important of Canadian books."); Lande 1317; Sabin 43414; Streeter Sale VI:3653; Wagner-Camp 1:1; Wheat Transmississippi 251.