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Today, modern voyagers travel the old routes of the fur-trading era.
Photo courtesy of www.davidthompsonthings.com and Pat McDonald
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In early March of 1812, David Thompson stood on a hill near Polson, Montana gazing into the heart of Glacier Country. He described Flathead Lake as a fine sheet of water. Less than a week later, he pointed his canoe north and east to navigate through the Rocky Mountains toward his future home in Montreal. His arrival in Montreal ended a twenty-eight year career in the wilderness of the Canadian and American West.
While this singular event may not seem significant to many, it has significance to those who wish to travel the historic trails of famed explorers who came before--especially if they want to travel such trails in Montana's Glacier Country. Yet most travelers of those historical routes in Montana and neighboring states do not know who David Thompson was or that he was important. Very, very, important.
As we prepare for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, a quick glance at a map of their travels through Montana shows us they covered the state thoroughly. However, Glacier Country and the Northwest are hard pressed to squeeze into one of their routes. Here we have to find our exploratory icons of the American West elsewhere, removed from, yet inextricably linked to the Corps of Discovery. That far-removed, shadowy figure in the dust of Lewis and Clark's fame is David Thompson.
Yes, you might know him, or at least his name: The Thompson River, Thompson Lakes, and Thompson Falls. However, few actually know about the man lending his name to the dots and lines on Montana's map.
Considered by many as the most important land geographer in North American history, David Thompson came to the continent from London, England in 1784 as a clerk for the Hudson Bay Company (HBC). Born in Wales in 1770, Thompson had the fortune of good schooling at the Greycoat Charity School in preparation for a career in the British military. Upon his graduation, there was little demand for him in the military, so at fourteen he sailed for the sub-arctic post of Churchill on the Hudson Bay. Proficient at his work, Thompson quickly became a well-regarded member of the Hudson Bay Company, maintaining his education while learning to live in the wilderness. In 1785, the company sent him south to York Factory and a year later, they selected him to travel inland to the prairies.
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Tools of the Trade: Trade items popular during the times of David Thompson.
Photo courtesy of www.davidthompsonthings.com and Pat McDonald
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The Hudson Bay Company and its rival the Northwest Company were in competition for the fur resources of northern North America at the time. Expansion of trading networks and establishment of trading posts were tantamount in securing company profits. By 1787 David Thompson was in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains where he wintered with the Blackfeet or Piegan Indians. The Blackfeet oral traditions have related the history of their relationship with Thompson for the last 215 years. He returned east to Manchester House in the spring of 1788 where he stayed until an accident nearly killed him in December. Thompson broke (may have been a compound fracture) the large bone in his thigh and was bedridden until March. This accident may very well have been the most important point in his career. David Thompson spent most of 1789 healing with very little travel. While he was recovering at Cumberland House, Thompson began making daily entries in a journal and met the HBC surveyor, Philip Turnor. Turnor taught Thompson the intricacies of taking celestial observations, navigating, and turning that information into usable cartography.
For the next seven years, Thompson traveled, traded furs, and surveyed the routes of his travel on the Canadian plains. In 1797, the Hudson Bay Company asked David Thompson to stop his exploration. In May of that year, Thompson quit the HBC and went to work for their rival, the Northwest Company, where he would finish his career. His first accomplishment as a Norwester was a survey of Mandan territory along the Missouri River. The resulting survey and maps aided Lewis and Clark just a few years later. Thompson spent the early part of the 1800s east of the Continental Divide, exploring and running trading posts. Yet he longed to explore and map areas further west. In 1807, he got his chance to do just that and that year he brought the fur trade and the Norwest Company over the Rocky Mountains establishing the trans-mountain fur trade.
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Howse Pass: One of Thompson's routes across the Canadian Rockies.
Photo courtesy of www.davidthompsonthings.com and Pat McDonald
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During the last five years of his career as a geographer, explorer, and fur trader for the Northwest Company, David Thompson established the posts and trade routes of the Northwest Company's Columbia Department. More importantly, he traveled and mapped the entire 1,100 mile length of the mighty Columbia River and much of the Columbia Plateau. He mapped and established trading posts in Northwestern Montana, Idaho (Kullyspell House on Lake Pend Oreille), Washington (Spokane House), and of course Western Canada. During his time in Montana, he established Saleesh House, the first trading post west of the Rockies in Montana. While there, the Kootenai Indians named him Koo Koo Sint, or Star Looker.
David Thompson accurately mapped more than a million square miles of the western North American continent. In his career, he traveled nearly 80,000 miles in the wilderness (Lewis and Clark logged 7,000) recording its flora, fauna, and making observations of its Native People. Yet to many living and visiting those regions, he is relatively unknown. Lewis and Clark may have missed parts of Glacier Country, but David Thompson saved the best for last.
David Thompson accomplished none of these feats alone; he had the support of his employers and their supply lines. He had the services, friendship, and help of many Native Americans, guides, other traders, and his wife Charlotte. He worked closely with Finan MacDonald and Jocko Finlay who continued their prominence in the Northwest and Montana Fur Trade after Thompson left for Montreal in 1812.
During the winter of 2002, Parks Canada invited selected individuals from Canada and the United States to meet in Calgary to begin discussion of the formation of an international committee to launch a commemorative celebration of David Thompson and the trans-Rocky Mountain fur trade in 2007. While only in the preliminary planning stages, this committee hopes to create an international commemoration documenting the importance of what David Thompson accomplished and the impact of those accomplishments on our history and culture. This will include exhibits, publications, presentations, and lectures throughout Western Canada and the United States, uniting the two countries and native peoples in their common history through the legacy of David Thompson.
