McKenzie, Charles, approximately 1778-1855

Charles McKenzie was born around 1778 in Ferintosh, Scotland, and died in 1855 in the Red River settlement (Manitoba). He worked as an apprentice clerk for McTavish, Frobisher and Company in Montreal in 1802 and moved to the area around the Red and Assiniboine rivers in 1803. Shortly before 1805, McKenzie married a Métis woman named Mary McKay, “a la façon du pays,” and had one son and three daughters. They formally married on March 6, 1824, in Montreal. When McKenzie was serving as a clerk under Charles Chaboillez (North West Company partner in charge of the Fort Dauphin department) in 1804, he was sent to trade with the Mandan peoples on the upper Missouri River. McKenzie stayed with the Gros Ventre tribe over the course of the winter and arrived at Fort Assiniboine (Manitoba) in the spring of 1805. In 1807, McKenzie was posted to the Monontagué department near Lake Nipigon in Upper Canada and remained there until his retirement in 1854. He recorded his ventures to the Missouri River in a journal that was given to Roderick McKenzie of Terrebonne in 1842, where it was later published in 1889. According to his journals, McKenzie was an advocate of Indigenous issues and recorded extensively on Indigenous hunting practices, events at the post, and natural phenomena. Upon his retirement, he and Mary moved to their son’s farm in the Red River settlement.

Revised on June 10, 2024, by Leah Louttit-Bunker

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