[.uk] First Crossing: Alexander Mackenzie, His Expedition ... (ISBN 1570613087)

Not much new!:
OK, there is some new information here. Mostly it seems that Hayes has helped illustrate the travels of Mackenzie, something that was not available previously. Barry Gough's book is notoriously lacking in any illustration of Mackenzie's voyages and Mackenzie's own book is virtually without useful illustration. Maybe having read the previous two books makes me jaded but Mackenzie's voyages can only be retold so many times. Hayes has presented us with a slightly new take on telling the story with pictures, maps and historical vignettes but I hunger for a more thorough job. Perhaps more in the nature of Moulton's "Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition". Finding someone willing to wade through Mackenzie's rather impenetrable prose may be a challenge. Notwithstanding the above this is probably the best explanation of Mackenzie's voyages since the original journals.

Illustrated throughout with maps and photographs:
First Crossing by historian Derek Hayes is the amazing story of Alexander Mackenzie, and his trailblazing journey across the North American continent before civilized society conquered the North American wilderness. Illustrated throughout with maps and photographs in black-and-white and color, the deftly researched and meticulously reported details of Mackenzie's voyage vividly reconstruct an 18th Century expedition of truly insurmountable bravery and pivotally important discovery.

First Crossing:
This book is a welcome collection of facts about the stupendous exploits of Alexander Mackenzie's Canadian exploration. But the words are curiously bleak & dispassionate, and separate panels of information on the pages, intrude into the flow of the narrative. What is needed now is for someone to take on the story, light it up with the raw romance of the period, paint the picture of the landscape, add colour photos of the places in the text, tell us about the man, and keep the size of the book down to normal. Let us see the landscapes in all their glory. The raw detailed story of the man remains to be told.