Mapping the Wilderness: The Story of David Thompson
By Tom Shardlow
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About this ebook
David Thompsons story is one of the great tales of North American adventure. His life was a mixture of truth and legend, but he was without a doubt one of the greatest surveyors and mapmakers of the North American continent. Raised in a charity school in London, England, and apprenticed to the Hudsons Bay Company as a teenager, he then travelled extensively, recording valuable navigational information. His life was one of adventure and hardship but also of incredible accomplishment.
Tom Shardlow
Tom Shardlow's diverse writing ranges from poetry and prizewinning short fiction published in literary magazines to book reviews. His freelance work, which includes creative drawings and photographs, often appears as feature articles in magazines and in newspapers. He lives with his family on Vancouver Island.
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Mapping the Wilderness - Tom Shardlow
years.
Why Were His Achievements Ignored?
Other Canadian explorers who lived in Thompson’s day became famous in their own time. Alexander Mackenzie, who followed the magnificent Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean and who was the first to travel overland to the Pacific in 1793, was knighted by King George III. Simon Fraser, who explored the Peace River, established the first trading post in British Columbia and who was the first to map and follow the mighty Fraser River to the Pacific Ocean in 1808, was a living legend. Why were David Thompson’s achievements ignored for so long?
Some say it was because he deserted the Hudson’s Bay Company and joined with their rival, the North West Company. Others say it was because he needlessly delayed exploring the Columbia River to the Pacific which allowed the United States, instead of Canada, to claim the rich Columbia territory. After so many years, the truth of these allegations is hard to know. But today these criticisms seem like drops in the ocean when compared to his achievements.
MODEST EXPLORERS
Unlike other explorers, Thompson was reluctant to name the places he discovered after himself. It was Simon Fraser who named the Thompson River in British Columbia after his fellow explorer. Thompson, maybe in appreciation, gave the Fraser River its name.
Arriving In The New World
On the afternoon of September 2nd, 1784, David Thompson walked down the gang plank of the Hudson’s Bay Company ship Prince Rupert and stepped onto the western shore of Hudson Bay. He was fourteen years old and had landed at Churchill Factory, the Hudson’s Bay Company company post in Rupert’s Land. He was thankful to have survived the turbulent seas and treacherous icebergs of the North Atlantic, but he was not happy. He had trained to be a midshipman or a junior navigator. He had hoped to enter the Royal Navy or to join a merchant ship, but instead he was beginning a seven year term as a fur trading apprentice to the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC).
An HBC advertisement designed to attract workers
David had received a remarkable education from an orphanage. London’s Grey Coat Charity School for Boys had taught him how to navigate a ship by the stars and how to understand the ebb and flow of ocean tides. But England was not at war in 1784, so the navy was not recruiting. When the HBC approached the school asking for senior boys skilled in mathematics, Grey Coat had only two, David Thompson and Samuel McPherson. McPherson ran away rather than face the uncertain life of an HBC apprentice.
GREY COAT SCHOOL
Grey Coat Charity School was chartered in 1706 by Queen Anne as part of a social experiment. In those days, poor or orphaned children were neglected and had to beg or steal in London’s squalid streets as their only way of finding food and shelter. The school’s founders believed that religion and education could save London’s orphan boys from a life of begging and thieving.
Although the boys were housed, fed, and given grey clothes to wear, life at the school was sometimes very hard. At one point the boys revolted against the terrible treatment they were given. They rioted and threw hot coals from a fire at their cruel masters.
Nevertheless, the school did shelter and educate many orphans.
Some students not only learned to read and write, but also were taught about mathematics, astronomy and navigation. These students were the lucky ones. When they left the school, they were able to help navigate sailing ships for the navy or for merchant ships.
An Orphan
David was born on April 30, 1770 and was given to an orphanage at age seven. His father had died when David was two. His mother was poor and unable to provide for both David and his younger brother. His mother’s choice turned out to be a wise one. Being a poor and fatherless boy in London was usually a sentence to misery. London’s poor districts were crowded, dirty and crime ridden. Poverty was made worse by an abundance of cheap alcohol, usually gin called kill grief
. Seeing the devastating effect of kill grief
on London’s poor people affected David for life. He would never use alcohol, and as a fur trader