A Vast Inland Freshwater Passage

A Vast Inland Freshwater Passage:

David Thompson’s Exploration of the Columbia River

By Simone Keiran

Published December 2008,
Resolution, Magazine for the Maritime Museum of British Columbia.

Astrolab used to measure distance between celestial bodies and earth for navigation.

Never had mountain ranges been more underrated than when David Thompson first broached the Great Divide in his search for a route to the Pacific Ocean. Maps of the period distorted the reality and minimized the difficulties, showing a single line of mountains as opposed to dozens of ranges, highlands and plateaus. The NW Passage had lured explorers for centuries, drawing many deep into Canada’s wilderness—and many an explorer’s underwriters deep into their wallets—hoping to discover a network of easily navigable waterways such as the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes to transport loot cheaply across the continent. The Northwest Trading Company (NWTC), Thompson’s employer, didn’t hope too much, though, at least not enough to finance a proper one-time expedition by Thompson to find the river that emptied into the Pacific at the present-day Port of Astoria—first claimed by Captain Vancouver in the name of the British Crown in 1792—and to explore and chart its length from its source in the Rocky Mountains to its mouth. This was the Columbia River, the British Empire’s last great hope for a North West Passage. Thompson mapped the great western river in fits and starts over the course of 11 years, delayed by impassable winter terrain, arms disputes between the Blackfoot and Flathead nations, the necessity of pursuing the fur trade along the way, moderate interest from financiers, and even a lack of game to feed the expedition.

From its headwaters in the vast icefields of Canada’s National Parks, the Columbia River winds 175 kilometers (110 miles) north through the Rocky Mountain Trench, gathering within it numerous wetlands, lakes and rivers. It swings south around through the Arrow Lakes, an area scouted by Finan McDonald, Thompson’s comrade—Thompson, himself, having followed the Kootenay River south into the wilderness which became known as Montana and Idaho. The Columbia flows past where the international border stands today through the American states of Washington, then west along the Oregon border, until it finally drains into the Pacific at Fort Astoria. In all, the river flows about 2,000 km. (1,243 miles) through the Pacific Northwest, not including its vast tributaries, and drains approximately 670,000 square km. (258,000 sq. miles) of watershed.

Approaching his task from the east, Thompson twice failed to crest the Great Divide. On one excursion, in June of 1801, he was defeated by impassable cliffs along the Ram River after a native scout, named “the Rook,” misled him. On another foray, in 1807, he and a select group of voyageurs were unable to out-paddle the ferocious spring run-off flowing eastward along the North Saskatchewan River. Finally, later that same year, Thompson, his team of voyageurs, and his Métis bride, Charlotte Small, broke over Howse Pass near Rocky Mountain House, and established a trading post on the Kootenay Flats, the base of his surveys until he realized that the Ktunaxa Indians of that area had no pressing need to participate in the fur trade.

The following spring, he surveyed the Kootenay River. The terrain was filled with such huge timbers that, ever on the lookout for economic opportunity, Thompson immediately considered masts for British sailing ships. As the river turned west, however, it became almost impassable. Banks grew into steep cliffs. The cataracts of Kootenai Falls constricted into an S-shaped canyon whose only portage — “a long and treacherous animal trail, 300 feet above the river” — cut their footwear to shreds. Instead of the two men who handled a single canoe, the portage required four. By May 7, 1808, Thompson and Co. ploughed through the rest of the canyon and its “violent eddies that threatened to swallow up Canoe and People.”

When he broke free and paddled to the wetlands where Bonner’s Ferry and Creston now straddle the border, he learned of a skirmish involving two of his traders, Michel Boulard and August Boisverd, a Blackfoot raiding party, and the local Ktunaxa:

“Three Peigan had been killed, and three Ktunaxa wounded, including the Old Chief, who had taken a bullet through his thigh. The surviving Peigan had gotten away with thirty-five Kootenai horses and the turmoil had disrupted the spring hunt.”
Jack Nisbet, The Mapmaker’s Eye: David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau.

The situation convinced Thompson to return east. Had he followed the river, he would have skirted the shores of Kootenay Lake, and into the western arm of the Kootenay River a mere 60 kilometers westwards to its confluence with the Columbia, at what is now the town of Castlegar. At the time, however, Napoleon’s armies and lingering hostilities from the American War of Independence were such that senior partners in the NWTC were hard-put to rationalize investing more money in the western exploration. Thompson had to prove the economic viability of his efforts, and set up Kullyspell House (Kalispel), the most successful venture of his fur-trading career, near Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. It was so successful, he had to sleep in a tent when his living quarters were taken over to shelter bales of pressed furs.

There, he continued exploring, but on a local scale. He gathered a working knowledge of the Flathead, Pend Oreille, and Clark River systems, calling them all the “Saleesh River” to keep it simple. His westward journey along these rivers was stopped short by narrow canyons and the Metalline Falls.

In April 1811, he resumed his journey down the Columbia. But just as they had set off, Thompson, Finan McDonald and other voyageurs were caught in a battle between the Peigan and Flatheads, and forced to defend themselves with guns. A dozen lay dead at sundown, most of them Peigan. The battle’s outcome changed the course of the conflict between those First Nations, and gave Thompson some respite. He pressed onward until, on July 9, his canoe arrived at the mouth of the Snake River. Two days later, they arrived at The Dalles, a famous portage which served as a fishing and trading post for all the tribes in the region, and created a boundary between the Sahaptin-speaking nations of the middle river, and the Chinookin group toward the Pacific. The landscape changed from semi-desert to luxuriant rainforest, and the explorers drew comfort that their goal would soon be achieved by the presence of harbour seals in the water.

Two days later, Thompson and his party arrived at Fort Vancouver, and then onto the trading fort set up by Jacob Astor at the mouth of the Columbia, later known as the Port of Astoria.

Mr. Astor had been a member of the Northwest Trading Co. when Thompson had last been east of the Rockies. What Thompson didn’t know was that Astor had parted ways with NWTC, and had subsequently struck an agreement with American investors by which he sailed around Cape Horn aboard the Tonquin. Thompson was made suspicious by Astor’s insistence that his man, Stuart, accompany Thompson on the journey back to Kullyspell House. As far as Thompson was concerned, it was good fortune that Stuart’s canoe, a dugout, was too unwieldy for the river, and the man was forced to turn back before reaching The Dalles.

Thompson recognized the vast economic potential of that river and its territory, and encouraged the British Crown to establish a division of international boundary along the northern bank. He was to be heartily disappointed by the Crown’s disinterest in the region and failure to pursue its claims. The modern Canadian-US border was set at the 49th parallel by the Anglo-American treaty of 1818, and later ratified by the Oregon treaty of 1846.

Thompson finished his maps and journals, then retired into obscurity and poverty along with his Métis bride, Charlotte Small, at a son’s residence in Montréal. Most white fur traders left their “country wives” behind when they returned to the east. To his credit, David stuck with Charlotte, even during their final years of poverty and hardship in Québec. Nor did Thompson ever lose a man, in spite of blizzards, rapids, sickness, starvation, Indian attacks and other treachery. After his death in 1857, his journals were left to moulder until the 1890s, when geologist, J. B. Tyrell recognized their value, and published them, at long last, in 1916.

By the 1890s, nearly a century after Thompson’s arrival, the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers and the lakes found along them became critical transportation waterways, their surfaces plied by Canadian Pacific Railroad sternwheelers that connected stretches of railroad running east, west and south. They serviced the mines, agricultural trade and lumber industry, and were instrumental in Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Depression, much to the detriment of Basin residents. The Columbia Basin provides drainage for critical watersheds west of the Great Divide through the Kootenay region of the British Columbia Rockies, and for the Pend Oreille, Snake, and Willamette Rivers among many others, through Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Almost all of the dams which were constructed for the purposes of irrigation during the Depression now provide hydroelectric power as well, and with global warming impinging on present-day snowpacks and glaciers, freshwater regulation is the issue of the day. It was for more than his ability with a sextant, compass and spyglass that David Thompson earned his Peigan nickname “Koo-Koo-Sint,” the Man who Looks at Stars.

Travel by land or sea required the application of Practical Astronomy. David Thompson was trained in this in the late-1780s, while he was employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Successful exploration required certain natural attributes, such as good health and eyesight, as well as professional skills and finely calibrated instruments, costly beyond the reach of the average fur trader.

Navigational instruments of the day:

• Compass
• Dolland telescope, achromatic to eliminate the colour fringe around stars which distorts accurate readings
• Sextant in a cork-lined box
• Artificial horizon
• Thermometer
• Pocket watch
• Two reference books: Tables Requisite and Nautical Almanac
• Magnifying glass (those reference books had small print)
• Pen, inkwell and journal
• Drawing instruments in boxwood and ebony to prevent warping and gouging, and carried in a waterproof sharkskin case
• Lamp and/or candles and matches.

Essential skills and attributes required for navigation and mapmaking:

• Mathematics, particularly spherical trigonometry
• Astronomy
• Legible handwriting and notation (thanks to Barbara Belyea’s translations, Thompson’s journals are now in print and readable.)
• Organized recordkeeping, accuracy and diligence.

Help and Helpmates:

Thompson depended upon a company of courier de bois. These strapping men, mostly Métis, paddled and portaged the canoes and supplies through the Canadian wilderness. They worked 14-hour days, paddled at 55 strokes per minute, and hefted 200-lb. loads, subsisting on whatever fare could be hunted, fished or gathered when the salt-meat and other supplies ran low.

Thompson’s Métis bride, Charlotte Small, who was 13-years-old when he married her in 1799, accompanied him on almost all his travels, made their clothing and snowshoes, cooked and looked after their physical wellbeing, and helped to create trading opportunities, while bearing and rearing their 15 children.

Delays and Difficulties:

Interior of a Cooperage at a Hudson's Bay Co. Fur Trader Post (Fort Langley on the Fraser River)

Thompson’s abilities, both as mapmaker and observer of native culture, were subverted by the fur industry. In order to secure funding, Thompson had to convince the senior partners of the Northwest Trading Co. that exploration of the Columbia River region would increase trade in furs. Exploration, navigation and maps always were secondary motivations for his financiers during his expeditions.

In summer, the northern basin is fertile and lush. It abounds with tall cedars and teems with fish and game. In winter, massive snowfalls make simple mobility, let alone trapping and hunting difficult, as Thompson discovered. In his diaries, meticulously maintained throughout his expeditions, he writes of severe gut-aches from black bread made from lichen scraped off trees, dried fish fuzzy with mould, and scavenged animal carcasses. Natives found paltry incentive for trade: they hunkered down in winter and enjoyed easy summers, moving around in sturgeon-nosed canoes well-adapted for parting the grasses in the wetlands. Thompson once asked Old Chief, the Ktunaxa leader, to harangue the locals to gather furs, but it never motivated anyone.

Furthermore, Thompson had to deal with tensions between the Peigan, a subnation of the Blackfoot tribe, in the east, and the Ktunaxa, in the west — the result of centuries of slave-raids and horse thefts. The Blackfeet and Cree did not want Thompson to trade in the interior because they feared guns and ammunition would pass from the mainly peaceful Ktunaxa to the Blackfeet’s more aggressive enemies, the Flatheads, to the south (in what is now Idaho and Washington states).

As well, Thompson received two threatening letters delivered by the Flatheads, the first from Zachary Perch, a self-styled US official, which implied the entire area was under US military jurisdiction; the second from one Lieutenant Jeremy Pinch, whose reasoning to stop exploration was that Peigan warriors had attacked and wounded an American soldier with British armaments. Thompson’s response was to the effect that Captain Vancouver had already claimed the mouth of the Columbia for Britain, but since he, himself, was not a government official, he would happily send complaints east to someone with authority. (No mention of either Pinch or Perch has since been found in American military rosters.)

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