Tommy Pickett, age 13, of Cleveland, Ohio, for his question:
WHICH RIVER IS CANADA'S LONGEST?
The longest river in Canada is the Mackenzie, which stretches for a distance of 2,635 miles in the Northwest Territories. It is second only to the Amazon among the longest rivers in the Western Hemisphere. The giant Mackenzie is almost 300 miles longer than the Mississippi River.
The Mackenzie flows north and west from Great Slavs Lake to the Beaufort Sea. Much of the deep river is more than one mile wide. The great Mackenzie's tributaries bring water to Great Slave Lake from the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia and as far south as Jasper National Park in Alberta. They include the Peace and Athabasca rivers. Other tributaries include the Great Bear, Liard, Arctic Red and Peel rivers.
All of the rivers form what is called the Mackenzie River System, Canada's largest water network. Together the rivers drain water from about 682,000 square miles, an area that is larger than Alaska.
Every second of every night and day, an average of 500,000 cubic feet of water flows from the Mackenzie's mouth into the sea.
Flowing northwest through flat, forested areas, the Mackenzie River passes new farmland developments at Fort Simpson and the vast oil fields near Fort Norman.
Not too far from Fort Good Hope, the river rushes into long rapids and then flows between high, rocky cliffs for many miles.
At a place called Point Separation, near the Indian settlement of Arctic Red River, the Mackenzie divides into hundreds of smaller rivers and canals that make their way to Mackenzie Bay and the Beaufort Sea.
A 1,700 mile section of the Mackenzie system, extending from Waterways, Alberta, to the Beaufort Sea, is navigable.
The Mackenzie River was named for Sir Alexander Mackenzie, a Canadian explorer and trader who in 1789 was the first white man to reach the river. Later he also crossed northern North America and traveled to the Pacific Ocea
Sir Alexander Mackenzie was born in Scotland and went to Canada in 1779 when he was 15 years old and worked for the North West Company.
When Mackenzie was 25, he was sent by his company from Fort Chipewyan at Lake Athabasca and asked to explore unknown territory to the north and west. His company was looking for new sources of furs.
Mackenzie crossed Great Slavs Lake and went northwest along what is now the Mackenzie River, finally reaching the Arctic Ocean.
In 1792, when he was 28, he went west again to find a route to the Pacific, which he reached 12 years before Lewis and Clarks famous expedition.
Mackenzie's trip convinced all that additional searches for a Northwest Passage to the Orient would be useless.
After his last trip, Mackenzie made a fortune in fur trading. In 1801 his story of exploration was published and in 1802 he was knighted.