David Thompson was 14 when he began his job as a clerk’s apprentice with the Hudson’s Bay Company. This soon gave him a chance to begin exploring portions of Canada, but when he broke his leg, he was confined in camp.
While recuperating for nearly a year, Thompson learned two skills that would serve him well the remainder of his life: how to survey and how to draw maps.
When able to travel again, Thompson returned to the field. Then, when he thought the company wanted him at a stationary post, he left HBC and went to work for the North West Company, the lead rival to his former employer.
Thompson became one of the first fur traders to cross the Canadian Rockies from Rocky Mountain House north of Calgary into the interior valley of the Columbia River source west of the Continental Divide, and he became the first white explorer to travel the full course of the Columbia River.
In 1807 Thompson established of Kootenae House, which he used as a base of operations as he traded with native trappers and explored the Kootenay River and the Upper Columbia River in British Columbia.
Located on a hillside above the river near Invermere, British Columbia, Kootenae House remained in use periodically until 1812, when it was abandoned.
Thompson was the leader in the North West Company expansion as the company set out to dominate the Canadian fur country. But he also made his mark in Pacific Northwest waters, which were hotly contested by both British and American interests.
Thompson and the North West Company had another post near today’s Kamloops, British Columbia, but the company wanted more territory.
The Columbia River flows south out of British Columbia into Washington state, before it turns west where it serves as the border between Washington and Oregon.
One main trading site Thompson established in the United States was Spokane House, located at the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane Rivers in Riverside State Park near Spokane.
Established by Thompson and North West Company in 1810, it was the first permanent white settlement in the present state of Washington.
The following year, in 1811, Thompson explored to the mouth of the Columbia, making him the first non-native (indeed perhaps the first man ever) to traverse the entire length of the Columbia River.
The river source is near Invermere, British Columbia, but then the Columbia flows north through precipitous mountains to Revelstoke before it swings back south to Kettle Falls, Spokane, and on west to the Pacific Ocean.
Ultimately, Thompson established a chain of fur trade posts in northern Idaho and along the Columbia watershed.
The HBC had its primary trading post at Vancouver, Washington. American John Jacob Astor established a trade post for his Pacific Fur Company by 1812 in Astoria, a venture that he sold to the North West Company in 1813.
Thompson, intent on claiming a wider territory for North West Company, established Kullyspel House on the north shore of Lake Pend Oreille, in present Idaho. Then, after exploring the Upper Clark Fork in present-day Montana, he established Saleesh House near Thompson Falls.
Even when Thompson returned to Canada, the strong rivalry between the North West Company with HBC continued. The traders and trappers working for North West Company eventually followed other streams, harvesting beaver and other furs in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah.
This era of the fur trade, which involved fixed forts established by the various companies where fur trading could occur, would be forever changed in 1822 when General William Ashley and Major Andrew Henry posted notices in St. Louis for 100 young men to explore the headwaters of the Missouri River, launching the mountain fur trade with their Rocky Mountain Fur Company.
Three years later Ashley and Henry changed the industry forever by switching to a more flexible way to carry supplies to trappers and engaging in trading activities: Rendezvous!
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
