David Thompson (explorer)

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David Thompson
David Thompson
Born	April 30, 1770 London, England
Died	February 10, 1857 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Occupation	Explorer and Map Maker
Spouse	Charlotte Small

David Thompson (April 30, 1770 – February 10, 1857), was an English-Canadian map-maker and explorer, known to native peoples as "the Stargazer". He was born in London to Welsh parents, and died in Montreal (now Quebec, then Canada East in the Province of Canada).

Thompson was a fur trader of the Hudson's Bay Company and North West Company. In 1785, Thompson was sent to Canada to serve with the Hudson's Bay Company, and served under apprentice for seven years.^[1] From 1792 to 1812, he explored and mapped the country west of Hudson Bay and Lake Superior, across the Rocky Mountains to the headwaters of the Columbia River and down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. He was the first European to explore the Columbia from source to mouth. He joined the Hudson's Bay Company as an apprentice in 1784. In 1797, he left the Hudson's Bay Company and joined the North West Company.^[2] The maps he made of the Columbia River basin east of the Cascade Mountains were of such high quality and detail that they continued to be regarded as authoritative well into the mid-20th century.

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 would have thought possible in two years. Thompson's 1814 map, his greatest achievement, was so accurate that 100 years later it was still the basis for many of the maps issued by the Canadian government. Thompson also completed the exacting 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.

He married Charlotte Small, a Métis, the "Woman of the Paddle Song." He and Charlotte had 13 children.

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". ^[3]

Thompson died in Montreal in near obscurity, his achievements almost unrecognized. He is interred there in the Mount Royal Cemetery. However, 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."

There is a monument dedicated to David Thompson (maintained by the state of North Dakota) approximately two miles north and one mile west of Karlsruhe, ND.

[edit] Footnotes

^ Luxton, Eleanor Georgina (1979). Banff, Canada's First National Park : a history and a memory of Rocky Mountains park. Summerthought.
^ US National Park Service. David Thompson. Retrieved on January 20, 2007.
^ Thompson, David. Columbia Journals. Edited by Barbara Belyea. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994, p. 135