Origin of the name for Thompson Rivers University
David Thompson and the Thompson Rivers
by Ken Favrholdt
Thompson Rivers University is named for the two branches of the Thompson that form the “meeting of the waters” which is the meaning of the Secwepemc name Kamloops. But do you know who the rivers are named after? It is fitting that Thompson Rivers University indirectly recognizes one of North America’s most famous explorers – David Thompson. He has been called by historian J.B. Tyrrell, “the greatest land geographer who ever lived.”
Born in London, 1770, Thompson joined the Hudson’s Bay Company as an apprentice in 1784 and was sent to Rupert’s Land, the vast area around Hudson Bay. While recuperating from a broken leg at Cumberland House in northern Saskatchewan, he had the opportunity to study surveying and mapmaking under Philip Turnor, the HBC’s first surveyor. Although he spent thirteen years with the HBC, he was disappointed in their hidebound operations and so defected to join the North West Company in 1797.They encouraged his penchant for exploration and mapping. He located the company’s posts in relation to the newly established international boundary along the 49th parallel west of Lake of the Woods. On his voyage west to Rocky Mountain House in present Alberta, he married his lifelong companion, Charlotte Small, in 1799. He was made a NWCo partner in 1804 and by 1806 he had completed his surveys of the fur country east of the Rockies and with the help of Aboriginal guides began to probe the mountain passes through the Rockies.
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Illustration #1
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In 1806 Thompson embarked on the North West Company’s plan to find a practical trade route to the Pacific:
Mr. David Thompson is making preparations for another attempt to cross the Mountains, pass through the country and follow the Columbia River to the Sea … the object of his enterprise is said to ascertain whether a Trade can be formed with that country valuable enough to be worth pursuing thro the difficulties with which it must be attended, and if it should, the uniting of the commerce of the two Seas.
In 1807 Thompson made his way over the Rockies via Howes Pass and reached the banks of the Columbia River which he called the Kootenae, near present Golden. He then traveled south and built Kootenae House, at Windermere Lake near the present town of Invermere. Here he spent the next few years trying to establish a trade with the Kootenay peoples and ventured into what is now Idaho and Montana. Called by the native peoples of the region “Koo-koo-sint,” “the man who looks at the stars,” from his constant use of the sextant and small telescope to determine latitude and longitude, Thompson gathered the information he needed for his "great map." On his return east in 1810 he received orders to follow the Columbia River to its mouth in the spring of 1811. Travelling across the Rockies for the first time via Athabasca Pass, he arrived at Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River on July 15, 1811, only to find John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company established there three months earlier. Unfortunately for Great Britain, this helped to secure the American’s later claim to the lower Columbia. Thompson was less concerned about politics than his epic exploration. On arriving at the mouth of the Columbia he wrote:
Thus I have completed the survey of this part of North America from sea to sea, and by almost innumerable astronomical Observations have determined the positions of the Mountains, Lakes and Rivers, and other remarkable places of the northern half of this continent. He then returned upriver and eventually returned east via Athabasca Pass to Fort William on Lake Superior in the spring of 1812.
Thompson retired from the fur trade in 1812 and went east to Upper Canada where he completed his maps. In 1814 Thompson finished his large map of the northwest from Lake Superior to the Pacific which was forwarded to the NWC and hung for many years in their great hall at Kaministiquia, renamed Fort William (present Thunder Bay).
Thompson completed the narrative of his explorations when he was 75. He died twelve years later in 1857 at Longueuil, Quebec; his wife passed away shortly after and they are buried together in Montreal’s Mount Royal cemetery. It was nearly 30 years after his death that J.B. Tyrell discovered and published Thompson’s manuscripts.
Despite his prodigious explorations, Thompson is not well recognized. Although there are several places named for him in the Pacific Northwest, including the rivers and a glacier in BC, and Thompson Falls, Montana, his explorations and discoveries need to be reiterated. Thompson united the commerce of the Atlantic and Pacific for the fur trade. In doing so he filled in the geographical spaces of Canada, traveling by foot, canoe, dogsled, and horseback over 128,000 kilometres, covering on his map an area of 3.9 million square kilometres. He was the first European to cross Howse and Athabasca passes in the Rockies, and the first to travel the entire course of the Columbia River.
On a monument in Castlegar, BC, erected in 1954 to commemorate his exploration of the Columbia River, Thompson is called “Canada's Greatest Geographer.” In 1957, a century after his death, a commemorative postage stamp was issued. In the next few years, bicentennial events between 2007 and 2011 will further mark his explorations in British Columbia. Thompson Rivers University will benefit from that revived recognition of one of our greatest Canadians.
Ken Favrholdt has been a part-time geography instructor at TRU for many years. He has had a long and deep interest in the history of the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest.
Illustrations:
1. Postage stamp of David Thompson. There is no photograph or contemporary drawing of Thompson. The only description is by a man who met him in 1820: “He was plainly dressed, quiet and observant. His figure was short and compact, and his hair was worn short all around, and cut square, as if by one stroke of the shears, just above the eyebrows. His complexion was of a gardener’s ruddy brown, while the expression of deeply furrowed features was friendly and intelligent…”
Readings and references:
Belyea, Barbara (ed.) Columbia Journals/David Thompson, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994.
Glover, Richard (ed.) David Thompson’s Narrative 1784-1812. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1962.
Hopwood, Victor G. (ed.) Travels in western North America, 1784-1812. Toronto: Macmillan, 1971.
McCart, Joyce and Peter. On the Road with David Thompson. Calgary: Fifth House, 2000.
Nisbet, Jack. Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across Western North America. Sasquatch Books: Seattle, 1994.
Tyrell, Joseph Burr (ed.) David Thompson’s Narrative of his Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1916.