David Thompson’s Narrative of His Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812 (1916)

“One of North America’s finest examples of early travel writing, a legacy to a fascinating historical era and to the legendary man who recorded it.” – David Thompson: A Life of Adventure and Discovery (2011)”Thompson explored the upper Missouri River almost a decade before Lewis and Clark and was the first white man to trace the entire course of the Columbia River.” – Nature Writing (2002)”Thompson…produced a manuscript of astounding life and power.” – Writings of David Thompson (2009)

Was fur trader David Thompson a greater explorer of Western American than Lewis & Clark who started their explorations nearly a decade later? Was Thompson the first white man ever seen by many Native American tribes? Why has he remained relatively unknown for generations?

David Thompson (died February 10, 1857) was a British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and cartographer, known to some native peoples as Koo-Koo-Sint or “the Stargazer”. Over Thompson’s career, he traveled 56,000 miles across North America, mapping 1.9 million square miles of North America along the way. For this historic feat, Thompson has been described as the “greatest practical land geographer that the world has produced.”

Thompson’s handwritten narratives of his many travels and explorations were published posthumously in 1916 under the title “David Thompson’s Narrative of His Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812.”

This account here published of the explorations of David Thompson in the western parts of Canada and the United States was written by Thompson himself when he was about seventy years old and still in the full possession of all his faculties, but after the active part of his life-work was completed and when he had retired to Montreal in the hope of enjoying his remaining years in quietude. While he was writing this history of the portion of his life in which he undoubtedly took the most interest, he kept his note—books before him, and with their assistance he retraced the scenes through which he had passed in the days of his youth and strength. He tells his story with an accuracy that has rarely been equalled in the case of an old man who is recounting the experiences of his younger days.

Part II of the Narrative covers in detail the years 1807 to 1812, which were spent as a partner in the North-West Company in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, and the states of Montana, Idaho, and Washington, while Part I is a more general account of his life while in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay and North-West Companies between the years 1784 and 1807, in the country from Lake Superior and Hudson Bay westward to the Rocky Mountains.