David Thompson: A Trail by Stars

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

This brief and partial life of fur trader and map-maker David Thompson
opens with an evocative description of his reclusive and
poverty-stricken existence in Montreal. We find him nearly blind in the
winter of 1850, without employment or retirement income, and living in
an unheated garret.

Subsequently we are introduced to the young Thompson and his
experiences as a student at London’s Grey Coat, where he was educated
in the disciplines required for a career as navigator in the Royal Navy.
When naval retrenchment blocked that path, he joined the Hudson’s Bay
Company, where he served as a clerk on the Bay and in the western
interior. In 1797 he left the HBC for the North West Company, where he
was able to exercise his talents in exploration and cartography. In 1817
he went to work for the International Boundary Commission. His
employment there lasted until 1830. From 1830 to his death in 1857, he
and Charlotte, his country wife, slid into poverty and ultimately into
unmarked graves.

Shardlow’s lively account evokes a strong sense of time,
circumstance, and place. Unfortunately, it ends abruptly with
Thompson’s retirement from the fur trade in 1812, some 45 years before
his death—years that included much of his most important
cartographical work. Furthermore, no portion of any of his maps is
reproduced in the book, nor does the text graphically describe how he
used the techniques of celestial navigation to pinpoint important fur
trade locations in the west. Recommended with reservations.