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Updated: May 22, 2025
Like many a distinguished man who has made his mark in the new world, and notably our great Lord Strathcona, who came as a mere lad to Canada, Alexander Mackenzie, a stripling of sixteen, arrived in Montreal to make his fortune. He was born as the Scottish people say of "kenn't" of "well-to-do" folk in Stornoway, in the Hebrides. He received a fair education and as a boy had a liking for the sea.
"In all the wide border his steed was the best," and the name and fame of Terence O'Ryan were known from Strathcona to Qu'appelle. He had ambition of several kinds, and he had the virtue of not caring who knew of it.
Donald Smith came out of the wilderness to become the Lord Strathcona of to-day. Sir Alexander Mackenzie's life presents even more dramatic contrasts. A clerk in a counting-house at Montreal one year, the next finds him at Detroit setting out for the backwoods of Michigan to barter with Indians for furs.
Doctor Grenfell had been many years on the coast before he was married. Mrs. Grenfell was Miss Anna MacCalahan, of Chicago. Upon her marriage to Doctor Grenfell, Mrs. Grenfell went with him to his northern field. She cruises with him on his hospital ship, the Strathcona, acting as his secretary, braving stormy seas, and working for the people with all his own self-sacrificing devotion.
He gathered her into his big strong arms and I have no doubt that tears filled his eyes as he looked into her innocent little face and carried her down to his boat. In a locker on his ship, the Strathcona, there were neat little clothes that thoughtful children in our own country had sent him to give to the destitute little ones of Labrador.
He remembered a painting which he had seen a long time ago in Montreal. It was L'Esprit de la Solitude The Spirit of the Wild painted by Conne, the picturesque French-Canadian friend of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, and a genius of the far backwoods who had drawn his inspiration from the heart of the wilderness itself.
I have only to mention the names of our immortal Lincoln, or England's present David Lloyd George, in the field of statesmanship, or of Lord Strathcona or Sir William Van Horne, or James J. Hill, railroad kings and empire builders, in the business world, or of Luther Burbank, in the realm of science, to make the fact of exceptions perfectly clear.
Vivie Patton had hinted to Montague of a "Decameron Club," whose members gathered in each others' homes and vied in the telling of obscene stories; Strathcona had told him about another set of exquisite ladies and gentlemen who gave elaborate entertainments, in which they dressed in the costumes of bygone periods, and imitated famous characters in history, and the vices and orgies of courts and camps.
For the launch blew right up on the bank in among the trees, and strive as we would, for days we could not even move her out again. Another spring we had a very close squeak of losing the Strathcona. While we were trying one morning to get out of a harbour, a sudden gale of wind came down upon us and pinned us tight, so that we could not move an inch.
On the occasion of his last visit Lord Strathcona did not happen to be in a complaisant mood. When M'Donald was announced he said to the secretary: 'Tell him I'll not see him. And as for Mr M'Donald's father having driven me from Forres when I went to America, it is not true, sir! I walked, sir! the last three words with tremendous emphasis.
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