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DAV I D T H O M P S O N ' S " H AU N T " I N M O N TA N A
Saleesh House:
Saleesh
D
AVID THOMPSON WAS PERHAPS THE GREATEST EXPLORER,
SURVEYOR AND MAP MAKER OF THE LATE 18TH, EARLY 19TH
CENTURIES. He traveled over 55,000 miles through western North
America from 1792 through 1812, greater than twice around the
Earth. He surveyed and mapped nearly 2 million square miles along
his way. Most of his trekking was done in what is now Canada while
opening up new fur trading routes for either the Hudson's Bay
Company or North West Company. This also included northwest
Montana. Lewis and Clark used a David Thompson map to find the
Mandan Village where they wintered in 1804, as Thompson had
already been there six years earlier. For most of his life, and well
after his death in 1857, he never received the recognition he rightly
deserved. He died penniless and virtually forgotten. However, in
the last 50 years historians have finally been shining a light on his
incredible life and impressive accomplishments.
David Thompson was a man of many talents. In 1784, at the age of
14 he arrived in Churchill on Hudson Bay from England as an appren-
tice for that renowned fur trading company. While there, he became a
master in the use of the sextant and compass and how to apply them
to surveying and map making. They would become his constant com-
panions on all his explorations. Whenever time and weather permit-
ted, he would be found staring into his sextant, figuring his position
by the sun and the stars. He was so preoccupied with gazing into the
heavens, that the Salish gave him the name Koo Koo Sint, "the man
who stares at stars".
by DOUG STEVENS
DOUG STEVENS
