David Thompson, the explorer

by Charles Norris Cochrane

Early next morning they began the descent to the valley of the Columbia. On the eastern face of the mountains, the approach to the height of land had been a long and steady climb. To the west, the ground fell away in a series of abrupt slopes, so steep in places that it required sure footing to avoid a tumble. A short advance therefore was enough to produce an amazing difference in the climate. The snow which to the east of the mountains was thin and dry, here lay heavy and wet upon the ground; and they entered a forest of clean grown pine of gigantic height and girth. So heavy were the loads and so steep the slope that the dogs were unable to guide the sleds, and from time to time they came against the base of a pine tree with considerable force, dog on one side, sled on the other, so that they were disentangled with difficulty. To relieve the animals, Thompson had a portion of the loads removed from the sleds. The men grumbled as they were forced to lug these packs forward through the heavy snow. Finally after fifteen days' travel they arrived at the banks of the Columbia.

Mutterings of discontent were now openly heard among the French Canadians. They had had enough, and would follow the madman no further. Four of them suited the action to the word and deserted. Two of the others Thompson despatched with letters to William Henry, describing the route he had discovered, and ordering Henry to follow him along it with an additional supply of goods. With the remainder, Thompson set forth on the journey up the Columbia. They had gone but one day when they, too, balked at the restless energy of their leader. Faced with incipient mutiny, Thompson had no choice except to return to the mouth of the Wood river, and there pass the rest of the winter.

The place of his enforced residence was the famous "Boat Encampment" of later days. At this point, the Columbia, after having pursued a north-westerly course for upwards of two hundred miles from its sources, bent sharply around the head of the Selkirk Mountains, and flowed off to the south. At the bend, the stream was joined by two tributaries, the Wood and Canoe rivers, coming in from the north, and forming at their mouths a wide meadow of rich alluvial soil. There in the midst of a forest of giant pine and larch, the party cleared a site, and built themselves a rough cabin. Thompson, never idle, spent his time exploring the neighbourhood, and constructing a boat for the remainder of the journey. As there was no birch bark available, he built it clinker-fashion of cedar boards split thin; and these, in default of nails, he sewed together with the fine roots of the pine.

The snow was not yet off the ground when he was once more on his way. He had counted on reaching the mouth of the Columbia not later than the first of August, and would gladly have made the descent by way of the river itself, which here lay clear before him. Of his canoemen, however, three only had the courage to risk the chances of the voyage. With so few men it would have been madness to venture a long journey on unknown waters and in the midst of possible enemies; so he determined to make his way past his old trading posts to the Salish country. There he knew he could find plenty of free hunters to help him in accomplishing the voyage to the sea.

It was six weeks before he had reached Salish House, where he hoped to find Finan McDonald. But neither McDonald nor Jaco Finlay was at the post, and, as they had left no letter to indicate their whereabouts, Thompson prepared to descend Clark's Fork by himself. The river presented an appearance vastly different from that of the autumn of 1809, when he had passed down it before. The spring floods were now at their height, and the water was rising at the rate of two feet each day, inundating the meadows to the foot of the hills, and dashing along with such violence that every island became a water-fall, with a strong eddy at the lower end. Down this raging torrent they paddled, keeping in midstream, and thankful as they passed each danger spot in safety. The antelopes had retired to the hills, and they lived on the meat of horses which they traded from the Indians.

On the 8th of June they arrived at the point where the river entered the Box cañon and became utterly unnavigable. There Thompson found a small camp of Kullyspell Indians, who informed him that Finan McDonald was now at a post which he had built on the banks of the Spokane river further south. Thompson engaged two of these Indians to inform McDonald of his presence; while he himself waited until the latter should join him with horses to carry his goods overland to the new post. Four days later McDonald, with thirteen horses, arrived; and Thompson with all his possessions was transported overland to Spokane House, about ten miles northwest of the present city of Spokane.

The Spokane river, like Clark's Fork, was a tributary of the Columbia, and, like it, unnavigable toward the mouth. Thompson therefore left a small assortment of goods with McDonald, and proceeded northwest along a well-beaten Indian trail to a point on the Columbia, just below Ilthkoyape or Kettle Falls. Here the stream dropped several feet in two magnificent cataracts, the roar of which could be heard for many miles around.

Just below the falls was an Indian village, the first of its kind that Thompson had seen. It was composed of a number of huts, each from thirty to sixty feet in length, roughly built of large cedar logs which had drifted down the river, and roofed with mats of woven fibre stout enough to withstand the rain. The Indians who dwelt here subsisted mainly on fish. Each spring, as the spawning season drew near, they propitiated the manito of the salmon with elaborate dances and ceremonies. Thus purified, they took their stand just beneath the falls and speared or netted the fish, which they smoked in quantities sufficient to last them through the year.

Thompson enquired of these people regarding the course of the river both up and down. From them he learned that the village at Kettle Falls was the highest along the stream that had survived the incursions of the Piegans. Below them there was a journey of ninety miles of rapids, at the end of which stood another village of salmon fishers. Beyond this they could tell him nothing. Meanwhile the canoemen were busy preparing a boat. In this region timber was very scarce. They had to journey seven miles from the river before they found a clump of cedar from which they could hew the planking of a canoe; and it was not until the third day of July that the boat was finished.

With five French Canadians, two Iroquois Indians, and a couple of the natives for interpreters, Thompson now embarked on the last stage of his journey to the sea. He remembered how, following the settlement of the international boundary west of Lake Superior, the traders of the North West Company had been driven from a country which they had made their own. By that settlement, the forty-ninth parallel had been accepted as the line from the Lake of the Woods to the watershed of the Rocky Mountains. West of the Rockies however, all was still debatable land; and in that vast region, with its timbered mountains and rich valleys, the wealth of fish in its rivers and of minerals hidden in its bosom, he claimed the right of a discoverer. At the stern of his little craft, the Union Jack floated proudly in the breeze; and at each halting place, Thompson posted a written notice in the name of the North West Company of merchants from Canada, formally taking possession of the country for His Majesty, King George the Third.