LAST YEARS
In 1812, hostilities had broken out between the British Empire and
the United States, and the flame of war was raging along the
international border. In the St. Mary's river, the voyageurs of the
North West convoy with which Thompson was travelling feared that
American troops might intercept their rich cargo of furs, but they
passed through the narrows without being molested and were soon safe
among the islands of the north shore of Lake Huron. From thence they
made a speedy passage up the French river and down the Ottawa to
Montreal.
His country endangered, Thompson accepted a commission in a battalion
of infantry then being raised by his old colleague Roderick
Mackenzie, but it does not appear that he was ever on active service.
The winter of 1813-4 he spent in preparing a final draft of his map.
This map, in which was embodied the record of his life work, became a
proud possession of the North West Company. For many years it
occupied a place of honour on the walls of the banqueting hall at
Fort William.
When the war was over, Thompson was selected as British
representative on the commission which surveyed the international
boundary from the River St. Lawrence to the Lake of the Woods. This
task occupied him for the next ten years, and was concluded in the
autumn of 1826.
At this time, Thompson planned to offer to the public an edition of
his map, and even went so far as to prepare a prospectus. This
prospectus is worth reproducing, because it sets forth in Thompson's
own words the achievements of his career as a geographer:
"PROSPECTUS"
"To be published in England, by David Thompson, a new and correct map
of the Countries in North America; situated between the parallels of
45 degrees; and 60 degrees of North Latitude; and extending in
longitude from the east side of Lake Superior, and Hudson's Bay,
quite across the Continent to the Pacific Ocean; and from his own
local knowledge; being the result of 22 years employment in
discovering, and laying down the several rivers, lakes, hills and
mountains on this extensive tract of country; many parts of which had
never before been explored; these discoveries were only finished in
1812. The whole founded on astronomical observations, the author
being an astronomer by profession.
"A small part of this work has already found its way to the public,
being copies of a rough map laid before the North West Company of
Canada.
"Of these regions the map makers have no doubt given the best
delineation they could acquire; but of what was known, so little was
founded on astronomical observations; and their being obliged to fill
up the vacant space with what information they could procure, has led
them into many errors.
"In this map now offered to the public, almost all the great rivers
on the above part of the continent, on both sides the great mountains
are traced to their sources; the sources of the Mississippi, and
several other great rivers, and the shores of Lake Superior, have
been examined and laid down by the author only.
"The position, extent and height of the hills and mountains, have
engaged much of his attention; of which he has many landscapes. The
last six years of his discoveries were on the west side of the
mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Each Indian Nation's Territories,
with their limits, and the places of the trading settlements will be
marked out.
"The courses and distances, (taken when necessary to 100 yards,) with
their calculations, etc., the astronomical observations, and rough
maps on the scale of one inch to a mile, on which these maps are
founded will be open to the inspection of the curious, while the work
is publishing; and it will doubtless afford much speculation to the
scientific, to find many of the great rivers of North America taking
their rise in a small compass, and going off to the different seas
like Radii from a centre.
"To render the map more general, and to give connection to all the
parts, the author will avail himself of the Sea Coast of Hudson's Bay
and the Pacific Ocean, etc., etc., as laid down by the latest
navigators and travellers; whatever he has not personally examined
himself, will be in a different colour, and the authority mentioned.
"Nothing less than an unremitting perseverance bordering on
enthusiasm could have enabled him to have brought these maps to their
present state; in early life he conceived the idea of this work, and
Providence has given him to complete, amidst various dangers, all
that one man could hope to perform.
"The map will be engraved in a neat, chaste manner, combining
elegance and economy, on the scale of 3 inches to one degree of
longitude and will form either a map or an atlas at the will of the
subscriber.
"The arduous survey, on which the author is at present employed does
not permit him to present the Public with a description of these
Countries and the nations of aborigines. This he hopes to perform as
soon as time permits.
"It is expected the geographical map will be ready for delivery to
the subscribers by the latter end of the summer of 1820 at the latest.
"These parts of North America have long been a desideratum on
geography.
"He also offers to the scientific public, of the same size as the
general map, a chart to contain only the grand features of this part
of the Continent, such as the great mountains and hills, the
principal rivers and extensive lakes; as he proposes to delineate on
this chart, the position and extent of the coal mines; of the various
beds of different kinds of stone and rock; of the great meadows and
forests; the limits of the countries on which the Bison, Elk, Red
Deer, Wild Sheep, etc., etc., are found; the line of the old, and new
portions of this part of the continent; the line of the position of
the Countries, over which, is the most constant appearance and
greatest brightness of the Aurora Borealis; and the line that bounds
their appearance to the westward, beyond which they are not seen; and
whatever else he may deem worthy of remark; all of which could not
have been delineated on the geographical map without causing
confusion."
The terms of this prospectus reveal in striking fashion the
scientific spirit in which Thompson's great work was conceived; but
if he hoped that the learned world would welcome and support his
efforts, he was doomed to disappointment. In the early years of the
nineteenth century, interest in the interior of North America was
confined to very few persons. It may have been that the number of
subscribers was inadequate. It may have been that no publisher would
take the risk of issuing the work. At any rate the map and chart
which Thompson projected never saw the light of day.
At the conclusion of his labours on the International Boundary
Commission, Thompson felt himself in a position to retire.
Throughout his working career, he had always enjoyed a good salary.
With part of his savings, he purchased a comfortable house at
Williamstown in the county of Glengarry, where he settled down with
his wife and growing family. It was there, on the 4th of March 1829,
that the last of his thirteen children was born. With characteristic
public spirit, he entered into the life of the community. When the
Presbyterians of Williamstown desired to build a church, he lent them
money with which to do so. As his sons grew to manhood, a
considerable amount of his savings was required to set them up in
business.
Thompson's declining years were clouded by financial worries, which
were largely the result of his generous and honourable disposition.
The congregation whom he had assisted were unable to pay off their
mortgage, so he deeded to them the church and grounds. His sons
failed in business, and in discharging their debts, he seriously
crippled himself. He sold his home at Williamstown, and removed to
Longueuil, near Montreal, where there were greater opportunities of
securing employment. Resuming his old occupation, he surveyed the
canoe route from Lake Huron to the upper Ottawa. This was in 1837,
and some years later he surveyed the shores of Lake St. Peter.
During these years, Thompson worked on the narrative account of his
explorations which he had undertaken to give the world at the time
when he planned to publish his map. He was anxious also to earn what
money he could from the publication of his book. It is said that
Washington Irving, the great American writer, and the author of
_Astoria_, wished to buy the manuscript. Irving, however, was
unwilling to promise that in using it he would give to Thompson the
recognition which he felt was his due; and, jealous to the last of
his reputation, the old man refused to part with his work. The
manuscript therefore, like the map, lay forgotten, until it was
discovered in recent years, and published in 1915 by the Champlain
Society.
The American Revolutionary War had left a legacy of boundary disputes
which were destined to disturb peaceful relations between Great
Britain and the United States for years to come. Owing to his work
both for the North West Company and on the International Boundary
Commission, Thompson was better acquainted than most men with the
issues involved in these disputes; and he was convinced that on
account of the stupidity and carelessness of British diplomats, the
just claims of British America had been continuously ignored or
overridden from the time when the original treaty of peace had been
drawn in 1783. In his narrative, Thompson relates an interesting
story regarding the settlement made in that year. The story is worth
repeating, not only because it illustrates his attitude toward the
boundary question, but also because of the light it sheds on
conditions in the North West at the time, and the greatness of the
service which Thompson and others performed in mapping the country.
Among the traders, he says, who made their way from Montreal into the
fur countries was a certain Peter Pond, a native of Boston. Pond was
a man of violent and unprincipled character. In the winter of
1780-1, he was stationed at Lake La Ronge with orders to act in
concert with Wadin, a fellow trader of the North West Company. One
evening, while dining with Wadin, he made himself drunk; and in an
outburst of passion shot Wadin through the thigh. His unhappy victim
expired from loss of blood.
Pond, however, was an energetic trader; and since in those wild times
and remote places the arm of the law was weak, he escaped the
punishment which he richly deserved. A few years later he had
penetrated to Lake Athabaska, the first white man to do so. There he
disputed the fur trade with a certain John Ross, who followed him
into the country in the interests of a rival firm. An altercation
took place between the two traders, and Pond shot Ross dead.
On this occasion Pond was arrested and brought to Canada for trial.
But the authorities at Quebec did not consider that their
jurisdiction extended to the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company,
and the prisoner was set at liberty. He thereupon returned to
Boston, his native city.
The peace negotiations were at that time in progress. The
commissioners for great Britain were two honest, well-meaning
gentlemen, who however knew nothing of the geography of the countries
with which they had to deal. The maps at their disposal were
wretchedly inadequate. One of them, Farren's, dated 1773, showed the
country as far west as the middle of Lake Ontario. Beyond that point
the interior was represented as made up of rocks and swamps, and
described as uninhabitable. Such maps gave every advantage to one
who was personally acquainted with the west, and the United States
commissioners had at their service the expert advice of Peter Pond.
Had the British possessed the slightest idea of the value of the
territories in question, and had they been disposed in the slightest
degree to press their claims, they might have insisted on a line
drawn due west from the middle of Lake Champlain. Such a division
the Americans would have been glad to accept, for it gave them more
than they could justly demand. But Pond was at the elbow of the
United States commissioners. He suggested to them a line passing
through the Great Lakes to the north west corner of the Lake of the
Woods, and from thence westward (as he imagined from his own rough
surveys) to the head of the Mississippi river. This demand,
exorbitant though it was, the British commissioners accepted, and it
was confirmed by both nations. Such was the hand (concludes Thompson
grimly) that designated the boundary between the dominions of Great
Britain and the territories of the United States.
The settlement of 1783 was in Thompson's eyes merely the first of a
series of unfortunate arrangements, by which the British dominions
were robbed of extensive and valuable territory. Edmund Burke had
remarked that a malignant fate seemed to attend all the operations of
Great Britain on the continent of North America. Thompson, who from
his personal experience knew the land and the people who disputed its
possession, was able to explain in a less mysterious way the failure
of the British to defend their claims against American pretensions.
Accordingly, in the summer of 1840, Thompson addressed a number of
letters to Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley and the Hon. W. E. Gladstone
on the subject of disputed points along the border. His object was
to urge a prompt and just settlement in each case. Such a
settlement, he felt, was important if peace was to be maintained with
"so litigious a neighbour." It was vital, if the steady
encroachments of that neighbour were to be brought to an end, and
Britain was not to be gradually deprived of her hold upon her last
possessions in America.
Thompson therefore endeavoured to arouse the leading statesmen of the
Mother Country to the significance of American policy as he saw it.
The leading men of the United States, he pointed out, all held it as
a maxim that no foreign power had any right to any part of North
America; and that every means ought to be employed to expel this
foreign power. They were well aware of the insecurity of their
position. On their northern frontier a powerful foreign nation was
in possession for upwards of one thousand miles. Their sea coast was
open and exposed. The numerous slaves in their southern and western
states were ready for revolt; while to the west were seventy thousand
Indian warriors, who had been compelled by force or fraud to quit
their lands, and who could readily be aroused to a war of revenge.
Accordingly, he alleged, the Americans had aimed ever since the
treaty of 1783 to restrict as far as possible the territory of Great
Britain and to destroy her influence over the Indians. Their method
was to advance claims which, though exorbitant, would be softened and
rendered familiar by the operation of time, and in each case, when
the settlements came to be made, they aimed to be in possession of
the areas in dispute. British subjects on the other hand had been
compelled to yield ground from point to point, because they could not
rely on the support of the Imperial government if they stood firm.
As he wrote, the situation was acute along the whole length of the
frontier. On the Quebec border, all the way from St. Regis on the
St. Lawrence to the Connecticut river, the Americans were holding
fast to a line some distance north of the true parallel of 45° which
had been named as the frontier in the original treaty of peace and
confirmed some years later by the award of the King of the
Netherlands. In the St. Mary's river, American commissioners were
claiming two of the three boat channels and all but two or three
hundred yards of a river bed four miles wide. If their demands at
that point were granted, Great Britain would surrender the keys to
her northern and western dominions, and shut herself off from
communication with them except by the frozen shores of the Hudson
Bay. At the head of Lake Superior, the Americans had driven the
British traders from two of the three possible routes joining the
Great Lakes with the Lake of the Woods, and were claiming that the
treaty of 1783 implied a boundary running along the line of the third
and last possible route (the Kaministiquia river), although the very
existence of that route was utterly unknown until at least seventeen
years after the treaty was drawn. In the present congress they were
again urging the necessity of taking possession of what they called
the "Oregon Territory," and demanding a line down the middle of the
Columbia river to the Pacific ocean.
Thus did the old man endeavour to arm British statesmanship for the
diplomatic contests which he foresaw were inevitable; but his efforts
bore little or no fruit. On the part of Great Britain, conciliatory
motives continued to prevail; and within a few years, Thompson had
the mortification of seeing even the Oregon territory (that is, all
the fine country south of 49° north latitude which he himself had
discovered) lost to the Empire. It is not surprising that he fumed
at British diplomats in general, and in particular at "the stupidity
of that blockhead Lord Ashburton."
There is little more to record in the life of David Thompson.
Presently, his eyesight failed, and he suffered the misery of a
destitute old age. One by one his possessions fell into the hands of
money-lenders. So poor did he become that he was forced to part with
his precious instruments, and even to pawn his coat in order to buy a
little food. A late entry of his diary reads, "This day borrowed 2/6
from a friend. Thank God for this relief." On the 10th of February,
1857, the long ordeal was ended and Thompson passed away in the
eighty-seventh year of his age. He was buried in Mount Royal
cemetery without even a stone to mark his grave.
For a long while after the death of Thompson, it seemed as though the
memory of his achievements had perished with him. But of recent
years his fame, so nearly eclipsed, has shone with renewed
brilliance, and it is now possible to estimate in some degree the
greatness of his character and the magnitude of his work.
In the sheer length of his journeys, few western explorers have
equalled the record of Thompson, for he travelled in all not less
than fifty thousand miles. Much of this was through country
untrodden by the feet of white men; nearly all of it was in regions
as yet unsurveyed. The unvarying exactitude with which Thompson
mapped this vast area excited the surprise and admiration of members
of the Canadian Geological Survey who with infinitely better
equipment traced his progresses nearly a century later. There are
certain districts which since his day have never been re-surveyed;
some of his work therefore still appears on the published maps of
Canada.
Throughout his life Thompson was inspired by a restless impulse to
push forward the exploration and mapping of the west until not a
corner of it remained unknown. The greatest satisfaction of his
career was undoubtedly the discovering of the Columbia valley. West
of the Rockies, he was not merely a surveyor and explorer, but in a
real sense an Empire builder, for he added a region of vast and
varied resources to the territories of the Crown.
It is difficult for Europeans to associate with savages without
misunderstandings more or less serious. The savage governs his life
by an elaborate ritual which he has inherited from his ancestors.
His code is sufficient to cover his dealings with his fellows; but it
fails to guide him in his relations with the strange new beings who
burst in upon him from what is in truth a different world. The white
man, unless he is gifted with unusual tact and sympathy, treats with
contempt and scorn the customs of the natives and seldom attempts to
understand their ways. Worse still, he feels himself freed from the
restraints which bind him in civilized life, and frequently gives
rein to the basest passions of his nature. Thus mutual
misunderstanding too often breeds hatred, and results in the shedding
of blood.
To a surprising degree, the traders of the Hudson's Bay and North
West Companies were able to overcome the difficulties and dangers of
dealing with the Indians, and their relations with them were
correspondingly successful. Yet even successful traders often lacked
the imaginative sympathy which would have enabled them to submit with
patience to the complicated ritual of Indian life; and standing aloof
as they did from the Indians, they were involved in constant broils
and, not infrequently, in danger at their hands.
Moreover, in the fierceness of their competition, the traders were
too often willing to play sharp tricks on one another, and these
practices taught the Indians evil ways. To drug the natives with
liquor and steal furs destined for rival firms was a habit only too
common. It sometimes happened also that small independent traders
had their supplies taken from them, their canoes destroyed and
themselves beaten senseless, so that they were driven from the fur
countries, ruined men. Individuals like Peter Pond were guilty of
offences more serious still. Their hands were stained with the blood
of their competitors, and in the rough and tumble of life in the
wilds, their crimes were hard to detect and harder still to punish.
The Indians had learned that the Great Spirit hates to see the ground
reddened with blood. But when they saw thuggery and murder flourish,
how could they preserve their simple faith?
Throughout his career in the west, Thompson was one of those whose
influence among the Indians was almost wholly for good, and whose
activities shed lustre on the history of the Hudson's Bay Company and
the North West Company, whom they served. His travels carried him
into the rocky belt south-west of the Bay, over the prairies, through
the western forest, and across the mountains of the Pacific slope.
Wherever he came in contact with the natives, he easily won their
admiration and respect. This was due to the insight with which he
studied their customs and to the sympathy with which he regarded
their way of life. For Thompson was infinitely more than a trader:
he had the mind of a scientist and the soul of a poet.
Love of country springs from many roots; but perhaps the deepest
patriotism is that which comes from an intimate knowledge of the face
of the land itself. Thompson loved the great North West with the
love of a man who knew it in all its moods; for he had journeyed
through it and studied it carefully over a long period of years. He
foresaw the day when the rolling prairies would be covered with
smiling farms, and the Columbia valley would be the seat of a rich
and vigorous civilization. In one respect, his vision of the future
fell short of reality. Living in an age prior to the development of
railways, he failed to see that these regions were destined to be
linked by steel bands with the Canadas in a Dominion stretching from
sea to sea. He thought of them rather as isolated communities, the
middle west looking mainly for its outlet to Hudson Bay, the Pacific
coast joined to civilization by the paths of ocean.
Characters such as David Thompson are all too rare in the annals of a
nation. So long as honour is due to great men, his memory deserves
to be enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen; and his high
qualities should be a model to those who inherit the Dominion which
he did so much to make.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The most important source of information regarding the life and work
of David Thompson is to be found in the _Publications of the
Champlain Society_, Vol. XII. (Toronto, 1915). This volume contains
the Narrative of Thompson's explorations, edited by Mr. J. B. Tyrrell
with a full general introduction, an itinerary or catalogue of
Thompson's journeys year by year, and notes on the text. The
manuscript journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson have been
published, under the title of _New Light on the Early History of the
Great North West_, by Elliott Coues (2 vols., New York, 1897). In
this work, Henry's journal has been published as a continuous
narrative, and extracts have been made from Thompson's journal to
throw additional light on specific points. Thompson's original note
books are in the Crown Lands Department, Parliament Buildings,
Toronto. They are too bulky, and too much encumbered with
mathematical data, to be of interest to the general reader, and so
have never been published as they stand. An article by Mr. L. J.
Burpee in the _Canadian Historical Review_, vol. IV., 1923, p. 105
ff., contains the prospectus of Thompson's map, and the series of
five letters which he addressed to English statesmen on the subject
of boundary disputes in 1840.
Washington Irving's _Astoria_ presents a graphic picture of the
occupation of the mouth of the Columbia by the agents of John Jacob
Astor. The narrative contains an interesting account of the
appearance of David Thompson at the newly erected fort, and of the
impression which his arrival made upon the Astorians.
There are short chapters on Thompson in G. Bryce, _History of the
Hudson's Bay Company_, Agnes Laut, _Conquest of the Great North
West_, and W. S. Wallace, _By Star and Compass_.