born 1755?, Stornoway, Lewis and Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scot.
died March 11, 1820, near Pitlochry, Perth
Scottish-born Canadian explorer.
Immigrating to Canada as a young man, he entered a fur-trading firm in 1779. In 1788 he set up a trading post, Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca. From there he began an expedition (1789) that followed the Mackenzie River from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean. In 1793 he journeyed from Fort Chipewyan through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast, thereby becoming the first European to complete a transcontinental crossing north of Mexico.