- Historic Sites A Man To Match The Mountains To David
Thompson—who died blind, penniless, and bypassed by history—we
owe our first knowledge of the American continent’s rugged
Northwest October 1960 | Volume 11, Issue 6 Usually, his only
companions were Indians or halfbreeds who helped him find
passages for his canoe and supplied him with fish and deer and
caribou meat. In the face of an unending procession of hardships
and close calls with death, he learned to live and travel like
the natives, moving with speed and exactness across vast
stretches of land, pausing only to seek protection from gales
and blizzards or to gum the leaking seams of his cedar canoe
with pine pitch. His sole comforts were the fair-weather lapping
of lake water, the warming flames of evening fires, and the
clean forest smell of pine-needle beds. Despite his increasing
interest in exploring and surveying, the Hudson’s Bay Company
wanted him to confine his activities to trading, and in 1797,
when his term with that company ended, he jo