Mapping the Wilderness: The Story of David Thompson.

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.

Tom Shardlow’s account of David Thompson’s life marks another stage in the campaign to promote Thompson’s accomplishments as an explorer and map-maker, and establish him as the equal of Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser. This volume, intended for young readers, emphasizes the way Thompson’s fortitude and ingenuity enabled him to make the most of his often unfortunate circumstances. Born in 1870, he lost his father when he was two and was brought to an orphanage at age 7 by his mother, who was unable to raise him. Fortunately, he was accepted by the Grey Coat Charity School and trained as a navigator for potential service in the Royal Navy. But Britain was at peace and the navy in retrenchment so, at age fourteen, Thompson became an apprentice to the Hudson’s Bay Company which sent him to Churchill Factory and then to York Factory. What follows is an account of his experiences and hardships in the trade—the repetitive, stultifying nature of a clerk’s existence, followed by a fur trading round that initially permitted no scope for his map-making aspirations—and then the opportunity to work for a time under Philip Turnor, the Company’s first surveyor. When ill health followed by the Company’s determination to make him an administrator threatened to thwart a career of exploration and mapping, he resigned and went to work for the North West Company as an explorer and map-maker. It was largely in his service of this organization that Thompson acquired the data required for his great map of the west, which he aspired to complete after settling with his family near Montreal in 1812. He did finish the map and subsequently worked as a surveyor for the Boundary Commission. Sadly, he sunk into poverty, slowly became blind, and, when he died in 1857 at age eighty-six, was buried in an unmarked grave.

Tom Shardlow has written an excellent book, an outstanding contribution to the campaign to establish Thompson’s reputation. One side of each page carries the story line; the other contains a sidebar establishing context for an important point made in the story line opposite. There is a useful glossary and a short bibliography of standard secondary works and websites.