50 Dollars - Elizabeth II Alexander Mackenzie

Alexander Mackenzie reached the Arctic Ocean overland in July 1793, completing the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico — beating Lewis and Clark to the Pacific by over a decade when he arrived there the same summer. Cook Islands issued a long-running series of commemorative dollars throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s honoring explorers, with this Mackenzie piece falling mid-run in 1991. The series drew frequent criticism for targeting collector markets rather than circulating domestically, a practice that became something of a cottage industry for smaller Pacific island issuers during that period.