The river now turned to the west; and far ahead on his left Thompson discerned the snow-capped cone of Mount Hood, which marked the line of the Cascade Mountains near the coast. Fifty miles short of this, he came to a village at which, as usual, he put ashore. Here the natives warned him of the treacherous Dalles or rapids just ahead, where the river for a distance of two miles glides noiselessly through a cañon never more than two hundred yards wide, and the ledges of basalt, projecting into the stream, create whirlpools and eddies in which the traveller is sucked to his death. At the same time, the natives informed him that at the mouth of the river, a party of white men who had come in a great canoe from the ocean, were busy erecting a house. Thus he learned that the Astorian party had anticipated him in reaching the mouth of the Columbia.
A guide from the village carried him safely through the Dalles, was paid, and returned to the village. Fifty miles further down stream, Thompson approached "the Cascades," where the river cuts through the deep lava beds of the Cascade mountains and makes a descent of about three hundred feet. Here the cañon was no less than six miles long, and nearly a mile in depth. Trying in vain to secure a guide, Thompson entered the rapids alone. For three miles he "ran" the rapids; a portage of one mile followed, taking him past the worst stretch of the river; he then re-embarked, and emerged in safety to the quiet water below.
There was still one hundred and fifty miles to the mouth of the river; but the magnificent forests of Douglas fir, cedar, and hemlock which now clothed the country told them that they had come within the beneficient influence of the sea. Two days' paddle brought them to Tongue point, beyond which they had a full view of the ocean. To the left, not more than a couple of miles distant, they beheld four low log huts, constructed of timbers newly cut—in the words of Thompson, "the famous Fort Astoria of John Jacob Astor and the United States".
At Fort Astoria, Thompson was welcomed by Duncan McDougall and David Stuart, old colleagues in the service of the North West Company. As their guest, he spent a week at the post taking observations for its position and preparing for the return voyage. Toward the mouth of the river, the natives had been demoralized by their association with wandering traders from the sea; and remembering their surly behaviour and menacing looks, Thompson saw to it that his men had their arms in readiness. On the 22nd of July, he embarked. At the Cascades, he was forced to appeal to the natives for assistance in climbing the rapids. The scoundrels were importunate in their demands. With knives in their hands and poisoned arrows in their bows, they were ready to kill and plunder the travellers. But the courage and resolution of Thompson warded off the crisis; and once above the Cascades he was again among the poor but friendly savages of the interior. Thompson was anxious to avoid the ninety miles of rapids below Kettle Falls. When he came to the mouth of the Snake river, he turned up this stream and ascended it as far as the present Lyon's Ferry. From thence, having borrowed horses of the natives, he journeyed overland across the sterile, sandy plain as far as Spokane House; and from Spokane House, with the assistance of Jaco Finlay, he once more reached the Columbia above Kettle Falls. There, building a fresh canoe, he re-embarked and made his way through the Arrow lakes to the Boat Encampment, thus completing his survey of the Columbia from its source to its mouth.
The following winter Thompson spent inspecting his various posts, and distributing among them additional supplies of goods which he had received from beyond the mountains. From Salish House, he rode east along Clark's Fork to a hill top within the limits of the present city of Missoula; and from thence he was able to trace the route of Lewis and Clark through the Bitter Root Mountains to the banks of Snake river.
In the spring he was once more back at Kettle Falls, where the furs from the winter's hunt were being collected. The results were excellent; six canoes had to be made ready to accommodate the packs. By the 22nd of April, his preparations were complete. The brigade set off by way of the Columbia, Athabaska pass, and Churchill river route to Fort William.
In the summer of 1812, when Thompson arrived at Fort William after his last journey from beyond the Rockies, he was in the forty-third year of his life. It was twenty-eight years since he had landed as an apprentice on the shores of Hudson Bay; and twenty-three years since he had actively embarked on his career as a surveyor. During all this time he had been constantly accumulating materials for his great map of the North West. His work was now complete; so that instead of returning to the interior, he joined the annual brigade of great canoes bound for Montreal. Thus did David Thompson bid adieu forever to the Great North West.
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 ofAstoria, 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.
The most important source of information regarding the life and work of David Thompson is to be found in thePublications 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 ofNew 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 theCanadian 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'sAstoriapresents 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.