David Thompson (1770–1857)

David Thompson
Born	1770-04-30 Westminster, London, England
Died	1857-02-10 Longueuil, Lower Canada
Occupation	Fur trader, explorer, surveyor
Partner	Charlotte Small

David Thompson ((1770-04-30)30 April 1770 – 10 February 1857(1857-02-10) (aged 86)) was an English-born fur trader, explorer, and surveyor who mapped vast stretches of western and northern North America while employed by the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Early life

Thompson was born on 30 April 1770 in the parish of St John the Evangelist, Westminster, London, England, to David Thompson and Ann Thompson. His father died before Thompson reached the age of two, leaving the family in difficult circumstances. At age seven he entered the Grey Coat Hospital, a Westminster charity school for children of limited means, where he received a basic education that included rudimentary navigation training.

On 20 May 1784, Thompson was apprenticed to the Hudson's Bay Company for seven years. His first posting was under Samuel Hearne at Fort Churchill on the western shore of Hudson Bay, where he copied portions of Hearne's manuscript journal. In autumn 1785 he was transferred to York Factory, and in summer 1786 was sent inland to establish South Branch House near what is now Batoche on the South Saskatchewan River.

In the winter of 1787–88 Thompson spent time among the Peigan Indians in the Rocky Mountain foothills, learning their language. On 23 December 1788 he suffered a severe leg fracture in a sled accident at Manchester House. During his lengthy recovery at Cumberland House, surveyor Philip Turnor arrived in October 1789, and Thompson and Peter Fidler studied mathematics, surveying, and astronomy under Turnor that winter. By spring 1790 Thompson had lost the sight of his right eye, which prevented him from joining Turnor's Athabasca expedition.

Despite this setback, Thompson was determined to pursue surveying. He wrote to the HBC secretary in August 1790 requesting surveying instruments in lieu of customary apprenticeship gifts, and his request was granted. He completed his apprenticeship and was engaged as a writer, and in fall 1792 was tasked with surveying waterways between the Nelson and Churchill rivers. He was formally appointed HBC surveyor at £60 annually in May 1794.

Transition to the North West Company

In spring 1797, Thompson made the decisive choice to leave the HBC for the North West Company. On 23 May 1797, he walked from Bedford House on Reindeer Lake to Alexander Fraser's post on the Reindeer River to join the NWC — a departure taken without the required notice to his employer. His motivations remain debated by historians, but his desire to pursue exploration and surveying rather than trade management appears to have been central.

Surveys and exploration

Thompson's fifteen-year career with the NWC was extraordinarily productive. In summer 1797, at the NWC's annual meeting at Grand Portage, he was instructed to survey westward along the 49th parallel to establish post locations in the disputed zone likely to become the boundary between British and American territories following Jay's Treaty of 1794. Over ten months he completed a sweeping exploratory survey from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg, down the Souris River to Mandan villages on the Missouri, up the Red River, across to the headwaters of the Mississippi, and back to Lake Superior via the south shore — by his own reckoning covering enormous distances at a demanding pace.

In 1798 he traveled through the English River department to Red Deer Lake (present-day Lac la Biche, Alberta), where he established a trading post. Over the following years he balanced trader duties at Fort George, Rocky Mountain House, and posts on the Peace River with shorter surveying excursions, including several expeditions toward the Rocky Mountains in 1800–01.

Kaministiquia and partnership

At the North West Company's annual meeting held at Kaministiquia (present-day Thunder Bay, Ontario) in July 1804, Thompson was admitted as a wintering partner in the firm. The following two years he managed trade in Muskrat country while extending his earlier surveys of the region.

A large map of the northwest that Thompson completed in 1814 — extending from Lake Superior to the Pacific — was forwarded to the NWC and for many years hung in the great hall at Kaministiquia, by then renamed Fort William.

Columbia River explorations

After the NWC's 1806 annual meeting, Thompson was tasked with investigating the Columbia River as a potential trade route to the Pacific, in part as a response to the successful American Lewis and Clark expedition of that year. In summer 1807 he crossed the Rocky Mountains via what is now Howse Pass and descended the Blaeberry River to the upper Columbia, which he initially named the Kootana River, not yet realizing it was the Columbia's headwaters. Over the next several years he extended trade and surveys throughout Kootenay and Flathead country, wintering at Kootenae House near Lake Windermere and at Saleesh House in present-day Montana.

In 1810, after receiving new instructions at Rainy Lake, Thompson was redirected to press toward the Columbia's mouth before the Pacific Fur Company — John Jacob Astor's enterprise — could establish prior claim to the territory west of the Rockies. Blocked from the usual mountain crossing by hostile Peigan Indians, he led his brigade on a difficult winter crossing via the previously unexplored Athabasca Pass, reaching the Columbia in the spring of 1811. On 15 July 1811, Thompson arrived at the Pacific Fur Company's Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia, completing the first documented navigation of the river from source to sea.

Later life and decline

Thompson retired from active fur trade work in 1812, moving with his family first to Terrebonne and then, in fall 1815, to a farm at Williamstown, Upper Canada, near many retired Nor'Westers including his close friend and brother-in-law John McDonald of Garth. In January 1817 he accepted the role of astronomer and surveyor for the boundary commission established under the Treaty of Ghent to define the precise border between the United States and Canada. For nine years he conducted surveys along the boundary from the St Lawrence River to Lake of the Woods, though his work attracted criticism when the resulting boundary settlement was considered unfavorable to Canadian interests.

After the boundary commission concluded, Thompson's fortunes declined sharply. The 1825 bankruptcy of the NWC agent McGillivrays, Thain and Company wiped out a significant portion of his savings, and successive commercial ventures — potash production, general stores, and a cordwood supply contract to the British army at Montreal — all failed. By 1833 he was forced to assign his lands to creditors to avoid bankruptcy. He spent his final working years in irregular surveying employment, including hydrographic surveys for canal projects and land surveys in the Eastern Townships for the British American Land Company.

Personal life

At Île-à-la-Crosse on 10 June 1799, Thompson married Charlotte Small "according to the custom of the country." Charlotte was the thirteen-year-old mixed-blood daughter of retired NWC partner Patrick Small. On 30 September 1812, Thompson had his wife and four of their children baptized at the Scotch Presbyterian Church in Montreal, and on 30 October 1812 he formalized their marriage there. Together they had thirteen children, seven sons and six daughters. Their relationship was notably stable and close by the standards of the fur trade.

Death

Thompson died on 10 February 1857 at Longueuil, Lower Canada, his passing going largely unnoticed outside his immediate family. His stature as one of Canada's foremost explorers and cartographers was not recognized publicly until Joseph Burr Tyrrell campaigned to restore his reputation in the 1880s and 1890s. Tyrrell obtained Thompson's unfinished manuscript — which Thompson had been writing in his final years, going completely blind by 1851 — and published it through the Champlain Society in 1916 as David Thompson's Narrative. By 1927, when Montreal ceremonies unveiled a monument on his previously unmarked grave, Thompson had become widely celebrated as a national figure.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography