Everything about David Thompson Explorer totally explained
David Thompson (
April 30,
1770 –
February 10,
1857), was an
English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer". Over his career he mapped over 3.9 million square kilometres of North America and for this has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."
Biography
Early life
Thompson was born in
Westminster to recent
Welsh migrants, David and Ann Thompson. When Thompson was two, his father died and the financial hardship of this occurrence resulted in his and his brother's placement in the
Grey Coat Hospital, a school for the disadvantaged of Westminster. He eventually graduated to the Grey Coat mathematical school and was introduced to basic navigation skills which would form the basis of his future career. In 1784, at the age of fourteen, he entered a seven-year apprenticeship with the
Hudson's Bay Company. He set sail on May 28th of that year, and left England forever.
The Hudson's Bay Company
He arrived in
Churchill (now in
Manitoba) and was put to work copying the personal papers of the governor of Fort Churchill,
Samuel Hearne. The next year he was transferred to nearby
York Factory, and over the next few years spent time as a clerk at Cumberland House and South Branch House before arriving at Manchester House in 1787. On
December 23,
1788, Thompson seriously fractured his leg, forcing him to spend the next two winters at Cumberland House convalescing. It was during this time he greatly refined and expanded his mathematical, astronomical and surveying skills under the tutelage of Hudson's Bay Company surveyor
Philip Turnor.
In 1790 with his apprenticeship nearing its end, Thompson made the unusual request of a set of surveying tools in place of the typical parting gift of fine clothes offered by the company to those completing their indenture. He entered the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company as a fur trader and in 1792 completed his first significant survey, mapping a route to
Lake Athabaska (presently straddling the
Alberta/
Saskatchewan border). In recognition of his map-making skills, the company promoted him to surveyor in 1794. Thompson continued working for the Hudson's Bay Company until
May 23,
1797 when he left and entered the employ of the competition, the
North West Company where he continued to work as a fur trader and surveyor.
North West Company
Thompson's decision to defect to the
North West Company in 1797 without providing the customary one-year notice wasn't well received by his former employers. However, joining the North West Company allowed Thompson to pursue his interest in surveying and work on mapping the interior of what was to become Canada. In 1798, the company sent him to
Red Deer Lake (in present-day
Alberta) to establish a trading post. Thompson spent the next few seasons trading based in Fort George (now in Alberta), and during this time led several expeditions into the
Rocky Mountains. In 1797, Thompson was sent south by his employers to survey of much of the Canada-U.S. boundary along the
49th parallel in the west, and from the St. Lawrence River to
Lake of the Woods to satisfy unresolved questions of territory arising from the
Jay Treaty between
Great Britain and the
United States. By 1798 Thompson had completed a survey of 6750 km (4,200 mi) from Grand Portage, through Lake Winnipeg, to the headwaters of the Assiniboine and Missouri Rivers, as well as two sides of Lake Superior.
Thompson wintered at Saleesh House before beginning his final journey back to Montreal in 1812.
In his published journals, Thompson recorded seeing large footprints near what is now
Jasper, Alberta, in 1811. It has been suggested that these prints were similar to what has since been called the
sasquatch. However, Thompson noted that these tracks showed "a small Nail at the end of each [toe]", and stated that these tracks "very much resembles a large Bear's Track".
Marriage and children
He married
Charlotte Small on
June 10 1799 at
Île-à-la-Crosse, a mixed-blood child of a Scottish fur trader and a
Cree mother. Their marriage was formalized at the Scotch Presbyterian Church in
Montreal on
October 30 1812. He and Charlotte had thirteen children together; five of them were born before he left the fur trade. The family didn't adjust easily to life in Eastern Canada and two of the children, John (aged 5) and Emma (aged 7) died of round worms, a common parasite.
In 1815, Thompson moved his family to
Williamstown, Upper Canada and a few years later was employed to survey the newly established borders with the
United States from
Lake of the Woods to the
Eastern Townships of
Quebec, established by
Treaty of Ghent after the
War of 1812. In 1843 Thompson completed his atlas of the region from
Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
Afterwards, Thompson returned to a life as a land owner, but soon financial misfortune would ruin him. By 1831 he was so deeply in debt he was forced to take up a position as a surveyor for the British American Land Company to provide for his family. His luck continued to worsen and he was forced to move in with this daughter and son-in-law in 1845. He began work on a manuscript chronicling his life exploring the continent, but this project was left unfinished when his sight failed him in 1851.
Death and afterward
The land mass mapped by Thompson amounted to 3.9 million square kilometres of wilderness (one-fifth of the continent). His contemporary, the great explorer
Alexander Mackenzie, remarked that Thompson did more in ten months than he'd have thought possible in two years.
Despite these significant achievements, Thompson died in Montreal in near obscurity on
February 10,
1857, his accomplishments almost unrecognized. He never finished the book of his 28 years in the fur trade, based on his 77 field notebooks, before he died. In the 1890s geologist
J.B. Tyrrell resurrected Thompson's notes and in 1916 published them as
David Thompson's Narrative.
Thompson's body was interred in Montreal's
Mount Royal Cemetery in an unmarked grave. It wasn't until 1926 that efforts by
J.B. Tyrell and the Canadian Historical Society resulted in the placing of a tombstone to mark his grave.
In 1957, one hundred years after his death, the Canadian government honoured him with his image on a
Canadian postage stamp. The
David Thompson Highway in
Alberta was named in his honour. His prowess as a geographer is now well-recognized. He has been called "the greatest land geographer who ever lived."
The year 2007 marks the 150th year of Thompson's death and the 200th anniversary of his first crossing of the Rocky Mountains. Commemorative events and exhibits are planned across Canada and the United States from 2007 to 2011 as a celebration of his accomplishments.(External Link
)Further Information
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