Unending Grandeur



Dean Channel



Dean Channel



Departed Ocean Falls in Cousins Inlet at noon and cruised four (4) hours up Dean Channel and anchored in Eucott Bay.  The camera couldn’t capture the full spectacle:  the mountains, falls, and sculptured granite cliffs stretched into an unending scene of grandeur.  Each photo taken only captured a fraction of this enormous territory – a vastness hard to comprehend.  On our cruise along Dean Channel, we stopped to see the Memorial dedicated to Alexander Mackenzie.  He and his party were the first to cross the North American continent north of Mexico (eleven years earlier than Lewis & Clark).  The Mackenzie expedition began on May 9, 1793; and on July 20, 1793, (73 days after leaving Fort Chipewyan) he and his men paddled down the Peace and Bella Coola Rivers into saltwater.  To mark the occasion, Alexander obtained some melted grease and vermilion from a local village and painted the date on a rock (date now chiseled in the rock), which can be seen below the Memorial along Dean Channel.  In 1801 Mackenzie published the accounts of his first attempt and of his second successful trip in a volume entitled “Voyages From Montreal.”  This was the volume read by Thomas Jefferson and shown to Meriwether Lewis.



Dean to Cascade Channel



Dean Channel



Alexander Mackenzie Memorial