the lewis and clark journals

Another great explorer of the same time was Alex MacKenzie. He travelled to both the Arctic and Pacific Oceans before Lewis and Clark's more famous expedition. Unfortunately poor Alex was a Canadian or I suppose more truthfully a British explorer so little credit is given to this man the "First to cross (North) America"

Look for books on the Hudson Bay Co. Along with MacKenzie were other interesting guys like David Thompson. About 40 years ago I was on a canoe trip in northern Sask. It was a university credit trip and one of the prof's was into a bit of history. We spent a somewhat eery twilight evening with our feet in what remains of a fur trapping post on Amisk Lake. It was credited to Alex. Henry No tourist signs to find it but there are still some imprints of where the  traders burried canoes in the sand to prevent porcupines from eating the seats and gunnels to get at the salt sweated out by the voyageurs. The post itself was a few barely seen ridges where the walls had collapsed and stone lined pits at the corners. This was 200 years after the post was abandoned. To think those guys were there in Northern Sask about the time old Dan'l Boone was finding the Cumberland gap.

Back in the 70's there were still clumps of wooden crosses below a few of the bad rapids where pea eaters from Quebec drownd