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32-470: Construction of the venue cost $ 44 million, of which $ 15 million was paid for by the provincial government. In addition to meeting local recreational needs, the venue was part of a provincial effort to provide for more elite sports efforts in the regional centres. In particular, the Peace River Region had been an important space for the development of several Canadian top speed skaters. The first use of

64-623: A 400-metre (1,300 ft) long-track ice rink at an elevation of 671 metres (2,201 ft) above mean sea level . The upper deck features a 380-metre (1,250 ft) walkway. All ice surfaces are artificial. The Pomeroy Sport Centre is one of only three indoor long-track speed skating rinks in Canada, the others being the Olympic Oval in Calgary and Centre de Glaces in Quebec City and one of four in

96-702: A detailed plan of his west coast project to the British government "Preliminaries to the Establishment of a Permanent British Fishery and Trade in Furs etc. on the Continent and West Coast of North America." The British government, at the time predicting conflict with Napoleon, took no action. (Later Simon Fraser and David Thompson worked to extend the Canadian fur trade and prevent U.S. incursion in what would be Canada. ) Mackenzie

128-565: A large role in the Peace Country economy. Pulp mills were built in Chetwynd, Peace River and Grande Prairie beginning in the 1970s. The economy received another boost when oil and gas were found in the region. In 1952, gas was struck in the Fort St. John No. 1 well, and the first refinery was built in 1957 at Taylor . The massive Elmworth natural gas field in northwestern Alberta was discovered in

160-993: A leading member of the North West Company, he aspired to extend the Company's operations into western Canada and selling those furs in China. His hopes thus were intrusions on the monopoly positions of both the Hudson's Bay Company and the East India Company. Mackenzie was born in Stornoway in Lewis . He was the third of the four children born to Kenneth 'Corc' Mackenzie (1731–1780) and his wife Isabella MacIver, from another prominent mercantile family in Stornoway. When only 14 years old, Mackenzie's father served as an ensign to protect Stornoway during

192-417: A message on a rock near the water's edge of Dean Channel , using a reddish paint made of vermilion and bear grease, and turned back east. The inscription read: "Alex MacKenzie / from Canada / by land / 22 July 1793" (at the time the name Canada was an informal term for the former French territory in what is now southern Quebec and Ontario). The words were later inscribed permanently by surveyors. The site

224-445: Is now Sir Alexander Mackenzie Provincial Park and is designated First Crossing of North America National Historic Site . In 2016, Mackenzie was named a National Historic Person . He returned the way he had come, arriving at Fort Chipewyan on Aug. 24. He spent the winter there working in the fur trade. The next year he returned to Montreal. Soon after, he travelled to the U.S. and to London. He returned to Montreal and became one of

256-447: Is provided through British Columbia's Northern Health and through Alberta Health Services , on behalf of Alberta's Ministry of Health . Alexander Mackenzie (explorer) Sir Alexander Mackenzie ( c.  1764 – 12 March 1820) was a Scottish explorer and fur trader known for accomplishing the first crossing of North America by a European in 1793. The Mackenzie River and Mount Sir Alexander are named after him. As

288-520: The American War of Independence , his father and uncle resumed their military duties and joined the King's Royal Regiment of New York as lieutenants. By 1778, for his safety as a son of loyalists, young Mackenzie was sent, or went accompanied by two aunts, to Montreal . By 1779 (a year before his father's death at Carleton Island ), Mackenzie had a secured apprenticeship with Finlay, Gregory & Co., one of

320-654: The Black Isle . The Mackenzie River and Mount Sir Alexander are named for him, as is Mackenzie Bay , and the municipality of Mackenzie, British Columbia . There are a number of schools in Canada named after him, such as Sir Alexander Mackenzie Senior Public School in Toronto, Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary School in Vancouver, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary School in St. Albert. Also Sir Alexander Mackenzie School in

352-811: The First Nations people understood that the local rivers flowed to the north-west. Thinking that it would lead to Cook Inlet in Alaska , he set out by canoe on the river known to the local Dene First Nations people as the Dehcho (Mackenzie River) , on 3 July 1789. On 14 July he reached the Arctic Ocean, rather than the Pacific. Later, in a letter to his cousin Roderick , he called the waterway "the River Disappointment," since

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384-579: The Jacobite rising of 1745 . He later became a merchant and held the tack of Melbost ; his grandfather being a younger brother of Murdoch Mackenzie, 6th Laird of Fairburn. Educated at the same school as Colin Mackenzie , the army officer and first Surveyor General of India , he sailed to New York City with his father to join an uncle, John Mackenzie, in 1774, after his mother died in Scotland. In 1776, during

416-495: The Nootka Crisis with Spain, he returned to Canada in 1792, and set out to find a route to the Pacific. Accompanied by two native guides (one named Cancre), his cousin, Alexander MacKay , six Canadian voyageurs (Joseph Landry, Charles Ducette, François Beaulieu , Baptiste Bisson, Francois Courtois, Jacques Beauchamp), and a dog simply referred to as "our dog", Mackenzie left Fort Chipewyan on 10 October 1792, and travelled via

448-469: The Pacific Ocean . Subsequently, the region saw a surge in the fur trade , with forts built along the river from Fort Vermilion to Hudson's Hope. At the beginning of the 20th century, the farming potential of the area was advertised by the federal government, but a settlement was scarce because of difficult travel conditions through the muskeg . With the arrival of the railway in 1916, and following

480-607: The Peace River Block . The Peace River Country includes the incorporated communities of Fort St. John , Dawson Creek , Tumbler Ridge and Chetwynd in British Columbia. Major communities in the Alberta portion of the Peace Country include Grande Prairie , Peace River , High Level and Fairview . It has no fixed boundaries but covers some 260,000 to 390,000 km (100,000 to 150,000 square miles). In British Columbia,

512-674: The Pine River to the Peace River . From there he travelled to a fork on the Peace River arriving 1 November where he and his cohorts built a fortification that they resided in over the winter. This later became known as Fort Fork . Mackenzie left Fort Fork on 9 May 1793, following the route of the Peace River. He crossed the Great Divide and found the upper reaches of the Fraser River , but

544-646: The Americas. It remains the sole such indoor venue in British Columbia after the Richmond Olympic Oval was converted to a general-purpose recreational centre after the conclusion of the 2010 Winter Olympics . The venue is built on a 3-hectare (7.4-acre) lot with 259 parking spaces on 96 Avenue. The lot features 1,700 square metres (18,000 sq ft) of pedestrian plazas and 6,500 square metres (70,000 sq ft) of landscape planting. The landscaping

576-602: The Bella Coola Valley, BC. He is referenced in the 1981 folk song "Northwest Passage" by Stan Rogers . The Alexander Mackenzie rose (Explorer Series), developed in 1985 by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada , was named in his honour. Between 1989 and 1993, the Mackenzie Bicentennial Sea-to-Sea Expeditions of Lakehead University attempted a segmented re-enactment of the journey between Montreal and Bella Coola, British Columbia , but

608-536: The Pacific Ocean. Having done this, he had completed the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico, 12 years before Lewis and Clark . He had unknowingly missed meeting George Vancouver at Bella Coola by 48 days. He had wanted to continue westward out of a desire to reach the open ocean, but was stopped by the hostility of the Heiltsuk people . Hemmed in by Heiltsuk war canoes, he wrote

640-710: The area extends from Monkman Provincial Park and Tumbler Ridge in the south, to Hudson's Hope and the Williston Lake in the west, to Fort St. John and Charlie Lake in the north. The term is used also in a broader sense to mean the whole of the Northeastern Interior past the Rockies, including Fort Nelson and other parts of the Liard drainage , and before W.A.C. Bennett Dam included the upper Peace River through its canyon between Finlay Forks and Hudson's Hope. In Alberta,

672-505: The estate of Avoch with money left to him by his first cousin and brother-in-law, Admiral George Geddes Mackenzie. Lady Mackenzie's father was a first cousin of the father of George Simpson , Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company . The Mackenzies lived alternately in Avoch and London. He died in 1820 of Bright's disease , at about the age of 56 (his date of birth is unknown). He is buried at Avoch on

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704-673: The leading partners of the North West Company. In 1799 he left the Company and travelled to London to lobby on behalf of the Canadian fur trade. In 1800 he returned to Canada and aided in the formation of the New North West Company (also known as the XY Company). In his journal Mackenzie recorded the Carrier language for the first time. In 1801 he returned to London and that year the journals of his exploratory journeys were published. [1] (They were later reprinted. ) He then presented

736-616: The mid-70s along with other major gas fields in British Columbia and Alberta. Both Fort St. John and Grande Prairie experienced rapid economic and population growth as a result. Peace Country contains Canada's northernmost lands suitable for agriculture . Crops raised include canola , oats, peas, and barley. Some cattle ranching and beekeeping is also done in the area. In 2006, the region accounted for 14.4% of Canada's total bison-producing herd. Other industries include oil and gas extraction and forestry . Lumber, oriented strand board , and pulp are produced in many forestry mills throughout

768-536: The most influential fur trading companies in Montreal, which was later administered by Archibald Norman McLeod . In 1787, the company merged with the North West Company . On behalf of the North West Company, Mackenzie journeyed to Lake Athabasca where, in 1788, he was one of the founders of Fort Chipewyan . He had been sent to replace Peter Pond , a partner in the North West Company. From Pond, he learned that

800-485: The opening of land for homesteaders in 1910, farming and ranching took off in the fertile Peace Country. The settlement of the British Columbia portion of the agricultural area, known as the Peace River Block, originated as a railway grant which wound up for a time under Dominion jurisdiction and managed by offices in Alberta until returned to British Columbia following ongoing jurisdictional conflicts. Forestry plays

832-569: The region stretches from Grande Prairie and Valleyview in the south, to High Prairie and Lesser Slave Lake in the east, to Fort Vermilion , High Level and Rainbow Lake in the north. The first European to explore the area was Sir Alexander MacKenzie , who travelled down the Peace in 1789 and eventually reached the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean . In 1793 he used the same route to reach

864-656: The region. Peace Country is crossed by the southern leg of the Alaska Highway , the western extremity of Alberta Highway 43 and the southern portion of the Mackenzie Highway . Other important transportation routes include the northern part of Alberta Highway 2 , Alberta Highway 35 , British Columbia Highway 29 , British Columbia Highway 97 , and Alberta Highway 49 . Regional air transport hubs are Grande Prairie Airport and Peace River Airport in Alberta and Fort St. John Airport in British Columbia. Health care

896-458: The river did not prove to be the Northwest Passage , as he had hoped. In fact the story is probably apocryphal, as Mackenzie's own and contemporary records merely refer to it as the "Grand River." The river came to be known as the Mackenzie River in his honour. In 1791, Mackenzie returned to Great Britain to study the new advance in the measurement of longitude . In the aftermath of

928-465: The speed skating rink took place on 23 December 2009. The venue was officially opened on 13 October 2010. The city subsequently signed a fifteen year naming deal with the Pomeroy Group. The venue covers a floor area of 13,000 square metres (140,000 sq ft). The ground floor features two North American-sized ice hockey rinks, with a combined spectator capacity of 1,000. The second floor features

960-613: Was knighted in 1802. He returned to Canada, where as Sir Mackenzie, he was lionized, He was elected to the Legislature of Lower Canada . He served as member for Huntingdon County from 1804 to 1808. In 1812 Mackenzie, then aged 48, returned to Scotland, where he married 14-year-old Geddes Mackenzie, twin heiress of Avoch . They had two sons and a daughter. Her grandfather, Captain John Mackenzie of Castle Leod (great-grandson of George Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Seaforth ), purchased

992-511: Was designed by Urban Systems. External links Peace River Region The Peace River Country (or Peace Country ; French : Région de la Rivière-de-la-paix ) is an aspen parkland region centring on the Peace River in Canada . It extends from northwestern Alberta to the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia , where a certain portion of the region is also referred to as

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1024-671: Was warned by the local natives that the Fraser Canyon to the south was unnavigable and populated by belligerent tribes. He was instead directed to follow a grease trail by ascending the West Road River , crossing over the Coast Mountains and descending the Bella Coola River to the sea. He followed this advice and reached the Pacific coast on 20 July 1793, at Bella Coola, British Columbia , on North Bentinck Arm , an inlet of

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