by Alexander Binning
Victoria, British Columbia
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Ken McGoogan, Ancient Mariner: The Amazing Story of Samuel Hearne, the Sailor Who Walked to the Arctic Ocean. Toronto: Harper/Collins, 2003. Index. Bib. Illus. Maps. 335 pp. ISBN. 0-00-639157-5.
Eric Jenish. Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West Toronto: Anchor/Random House, 2004. Index. Bib. Illus. Maps. 309 pp. ISBN. 0-385-65974-1.
There is a form of Canadian history that might be called the “in the footsteps of” genre. A high standard was set by historical geographer Eric Ross in his 1970 fictionalized account, Beyond the River and the Bay, based on a close scrutiny of documentary and cartographic sources relating to the great northern entranceways to North America: the valleys of the Churchill, Nelson and Hayes Rivers. [1] Bruce Haig and his associates at the Alberta Historic Trails Association produced several useful studies such as In the Footsteps of Thomas Blackiston - 1858 and an edition of Peter Fidler’s Journal. [2] More recently, we have had Jack Nisbet’s Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson, and Barbara Belyea’s studies of Thompson and Henday. [3] It need only be added that this tradition has deep roots. It started with a pragmatic purpose. Accounts derived from expeditions in search of Franklin’s lost party were many. It was more formally in place by 1897 when the American, Elliott Coues, edited Alexander Henry the Younger’s Journal, and was reinvigorated by Joseph B. Tyrrell, the distinguished editor of the works of Thompson and Hearne. [4] In his long career as a geologist, Tyrrell traversed many of the landscapes made famous by both of these fur trade explorers. The books here under review may be considered contributions to this genre, but with much added on the biographical side.
Next to Tyrrell, the closest students of Hearne (1745-1792) and Thompson (1770-1857) were Arthur S. Morton, Richard G. Glover, Victor Hopwood and Gordon Speck, although only Speck wrote a formal biography. [5] There have been no subsequent critical biographies of these singular men. [6] In addition to telling their stories anew, the books here reviewed invite us, somewhat indirectly in the case of Jenish, to consider the influence of Enlightenment thinking on the achievements of both. In Hearne’s case, the influences were mainly literary and philosophical. In the case of Thompson, largely scientific and theological.
“Mr. Samuel Hearne, Late Chief at Prince of Wales Fort, Hudson’s Bay.” Coloured engraving (artist unknown), 1796.
Source: Archives of Manitoba, Hudson’s Bay Company Archives.
Fresh from a similar exercise dealing with John Rae, novelist and historian Ken McGoogan brings to his study of Hearne a brand of historiography, which he advertises as “imaginative non-fiction.” Some consider his approach, with good reason, to be controversial; but McGoogan is hardly the first to try and fill in silences in the historical record with something plausible. [7] His assumptions are twofold: first, that historical studies require some kind of hybrid form, something combining history proper together with the approach of the informed travel writer and the historical novelist; and second, that in the execution, not too much should be given away about when one form merges with another, for this can be distracting to the telling of the story.
For a sampling of his approach, the reader might compare his treatment of the aftermath of the famous episode in which Hearne witnesses a Chipewyan massacre of Inuit at Bloody Falls in July 1771, with the original passage given by Hearne. McGoogan: (158)
Traumatized by what he had witnessed, initially unable to eat, Samuel Hearne faced a choice: he could complete the quest he had begun two years before, or he could refuse to associate with those who had acted so brutally, strike out on his own, and perish. Hearne chose to survive. Having travelled without sustenance for two days, he sat down at the fire and ate salmon. A sated Matonabbee, still licking his fingers said: “Now we will finish your survey.”
Hearne (Tyrrell, ed. 1911), 184-5
After the Indians had completed this piece of wantonness we sat down, and made a good meal of fresh salmon, which were as numerous at the place where we now rested, as they were on the West side of the river. When we had finished our meal, which was the first we had enjoyed for many hours, the Indians told me they were again ready to assist me in making the end of my survey.
There is clearly a correspondence between the two treatments, but the reader can plainly see that the details of the action have been altered, and one must ask, as others have, why one would choose to revise in contravention of the original? [8] This is substantially different from filling in the gaps of presumed homespun conversation between Captain Hood, Mrs. Hearne and the young Hearne. (24-5); If the record is, in fact, not “silent” there is little need to dramatize it.
McGoogan’s approach leads to some confusion for those who like their history “neat.” In his “Author’s Note” he states: “Instead of using footnotes, I have indicated sources within the text.” Sometimes this is so, but the reader often has no means of identifying many passages which appear in quotations as being either created dialogue or genuine material; and if genuine, from what source?
During his enquiries, the author took time to visit many of the haunts of Hearne in Canada and England. Although Glover and Speck both provided some background on Hearne’s early naval career, McGoogan has gone much further in reconstructing Hearne’s early education and his years under Captain (later Admiral) Samuel Hood. A young man with a spotty formal education, Hearne is quickly revealed as a lad of natural curiosity and independence of mind, eager to be outdoors. Like Thompson, he was deprived of his father early, and had to make do as his mother dictated. Her son not being bookish, the widow Hearne sought and found a place for him serving directly under Hood. His disposition quickly became that of a pragmatist, one who had learned how to remain silent when necessary. Appalled by the spectacles of war and the cruel ways of Navy discipline, Hearne started to plot a different course in life. McGoogan argues for the seminal effect on Hearne of Voltaire’s public championing of the cause of Admiral John Byng, executed for dubious treason in 1757. (37-41)
While McGoogan’s attentions to the social history of Hearne’s London and to his naval career are admirable, there are nevertheless some curious assertions made by the author elsewhere about his findings. He is sure for example, that “Canadian historians have always thought that he was never more than an ordinary seaman,” but through “consultations with an expert on the papers of the Royal Navy I was able to determine that Hearne was a midshipman.” [9] This certainly does not conform with the literature McGoogan has employed, for both Glover and Speck were quite clear about Hearne’s status as a midshipman. [10]
Hearne’s naval career corresponded with the heavy actions of the Seven Years War. By 1763, he had seen enough and quit the Royal Navy. The next we hear of him he is in charge of a Hudson’s Bay Company frigate working the fishery out of Churchill. The fishery was a general failure and Hearne soon became a land-oriented fur trader, steadily rising in the ranks. He clearly learned something from William Wales, (the astronomer attached to Cook’s second expedition), when he visited Prince of Wales Fort for over a year in 1768 and 1769, there to view the transit of Venus. Hearne never became the greatest surveyor on record, although better than many have surmised. [11] Wales, indeed, would be of further service to Hearne when the latter became inclined to publish a version of his travels. [12]
These travels had come about at the behest of that most curious Governor of Churchill, Moses Norton. [13] Hearne attempted or made exploration treks from Churchill to the Copper Mine River on the Arctic coast between 1769 and 1772. The quest was not just for a solution to the longstanding Northwest Passage question but also for copper, long of interest to Norton. While his account of these efforts was not published until 1795, after his death, it was clearly based on his day-to-day journals, some of which David Thompson read in 1784 at Churchill, when he briefly served under Hearne. [14]
A North West View of Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson’s Bay, North America by Samuel Hearne, 1777. From Samuel Hearne, A Journey to the Northern Ocean, 1795.
Source: Archives of Manitoba
McGoogan has now moved onto more familiar historical ground. In summarizing the essentials and dramatizing the main events, he adds little new to Hearne’s published account, but reinforces many interesting episodes. We may consider here, however, his outer thesis: the argument he makes concerning the important English romantic poet and critic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1934, W. H. Watson noticed that Coleridge, (1772-1834) had owned a copy of the 1796 Dublin edition of Hearne’s Journey to the Northern Ocean, and that it was closely annotated in Coleridge’s hand. [15] This reading by Coleridge is the jumping-off point for McGoogan’s question about just who inspired Coleridge’s famous poem, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. McGoogan makes a good case for Hearne as the probable source, as opposed to such other notable figures as William Wales or Fletcher Christian, of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. (291-3). He establishes that not only was Coleridge reading Hearne at a crucial time, but that the two men actually met. Significantly, Coleridge had already drawn on Hearne for an earlier literary production, The Three Graves. (290). McGoogan posits the presence of a Conradian “horror” in Hearne, derived from his war experiences and his witnessing of the seemingly senseless “Bloody Falls Massacre.” It is the full range of Hearne’s grim existential experiences of the world that convinces McGoogan that Hearne was the inspiration for the poet’s universal tale. Some have found the thesis too smooth, but the present writer finds the argument worth considering. The scale of Coleridge’s interests was large, and he could well have fastened upon the psychological aspects of Hearne’s tale and personal life without necessarily modelling the details of his tale directly on them.
In the service of this thesis, McGoogan finds the more dramatic aspects of Hearne’s account to be sufficient as they stand. He is not particularly interested in the state of current scholarship with respect to the incident at Bloody Falls. He would be more persuasive if he were less dismissive of some of the detailed and Erasmian textual criticisms made by Ian MacLaren of Hearne’s 1795 text. He misrepresents MacLaren in this regard, (288) who does not state that a massacre never happened, but only that there are real reasons for doubting the enhanced nature of its final description in the 1795 version of Hearne’s Journey. [16]
The other event that many will recall from Hearne’s life is his surrender of the large, seemingly impregnable, Prince of Wales Fort to the French Admiral, La Pérouse, in the summer of 1782. Hearne’s sensitivity to the horrors of war mixed with a realistic perception of his strategic situation help explain his rapid capitulation. McGoogan is in general agreement with earlier historians that Hearne acted appropriately in this situation. Characteristically, he serves the event up in embellished and melodramatic terms. (228-39)
McGoogan finds another opportunity to introduce Voltaire’s influence on Hearne, but here it becomes more problematic. Based on David Thompson’s brief account in his Narrative, he crafts a fictional 1785 dialogue at Churchill between Hearne, in command, and young Thompson, the novice. The conversation between the men is presented as civilized and polite, focusing on religion. (251-3). We are given the following:
“You would have me believe in miracles, Mr. Thompson? In divine intervention?” Hearne reached over, plucked a dog-eared volume from the top of his desk, and showed it to the orphanageeducated youth.
“Here is my Bible, Mr. Thompson.”
“The Philosophical Dictionary.” Having read the title out loud, the young man cried: “ But that’s....surely you jest!”
“I am sorry to shock you.” Hearne laid the book back on his desk. “But no, I do not jest.”
“But Voltaire is - an unbeliever!”
“You wish me to believe in miracles?” Hearne placed one hand upon the Dictionary. “Here is my belief, Mr. Thompson. Here is my belief, and I have no other.”
Now, for any reader of Thompson’s Narrative, it will be clear enough which words in this passage are on the record, being confined mainly to the last sentence. The real difficulty is one of plausibility. Had the fourteen year old Thompson, fresh from his studies in mathematics and geography, served up in the atmosphere of an Anglican establishment, (tainted by Methodism) ever heard of Voltaire until Hearne drew him to his attention? [17] Thompson could, perhaps, have heard something prior from veteran employees at Churchill; but then the question would arise: how much did those same employees know about Voltaire? What is more likely is that the seventy-five year old Thompson, wrote his brief passage on this topic as he recalled the event, enhanced slightly by what he had learned about Hearne in the interim, which was probably not much.
McGoogan’s suggestion, in this same context, that Thompson had “excelled in Bible study” is without foundation. (251) Religious studies were a part of the curriculum at Grey Coat, as in most similar English Charity Schools; but based on the researches of Tyrrell and Ruggles, we have long had a good understanding of what constituted Thompson’s main educational reading. [18] Any link between the school’s high-minded constitution and its actual practice, is of course, something of which we can know little. If Charles Lamb’s reminiscence of life in the nearby Blue Coat School, (at roughly the time Thompson attended Grey Coat), is anywhere close to the mark, one will not easily embrace the view that Thompson had the slightest chance of being turned out as some narrow, overly-Biblical innocent. [19]
The difficulties with Voltaire continue. McGoogan now resurrects Glover’s “scintillating essay” of 1950, “The Witness of David Thompson” and swallows it whole, failing to notice that in that piece Glover had come close to dismissing the entire Voltaire episode as yet another late Thompson, malice-inspired, fabrication. [20] McGoogan concludes, (with a nod to Umfreville), that “Perhaps Thompson bore a grudge because Hearne paid him little attention.” (285) Then again, it might well be that Thompson did not bear Hearne any grudge whatsoever. Some evidence for it, (beyond the assertion that Thompson was a “believer” and Hearne was not), from a legitimate source would seem to be the minimum requirement. Indeed, the evidence for Hearne’s proposed atheism is itself problematic. If Voltaire was Hearne’s idol, this would more likely have made Hearne a Deist. Finally, it must be said that we do not really know much about Thompson’s actual brand of belief. He had been raised in an Anglican atmosphere, he clearly enjoyed reading the Bible (among other things) and he eventually adopted Presbyterianism, no doubt through association with his Montreal partners. [21] In the late 1830s, his financial troubles issued in part from his holding the mortgage for the Presbyterian Church in Williamstown, which defaulted. [22] The regular reference to “good Providence” in his writings has a Methodist ring, transferred to young Thompson, no doubt, by the growing strength of the Evangelical Party in the Anglican establishment in the later eighteenth century. [23] There was in fact, nothing narrow about the outlooks of either Hearne or Thompson. Both possessed a driving curiosity, their writings revealing close interests in natural history and the ways of life encountered. Let us now turn to the life of the latter.
The dominating figures in the study of Thompson have been J. B. Tyrrell, Elliott Coues, T. C. Elliott, A. S. Morton, Catherine White, Victor Hopwood and Richard Glover. [24] There were others in the ranks however, and as the last century turned, interest had long shifted to a renewed interest in the unpublished Journals and in the broader significance of Thompson’s general geographic achievements. [25] Prior to this shift however, controversies of a varied nature had accumulated around Thompson, mainly owing to the critiques of Morton and Glover. These criticisms tended to focus on (1) Thompson’s credibility as an observer in his Narrative; (2) his moral conduct with respect to his first employer, the Hudson’s Bay Company, (3) his want of leadership skills and courage, and (4) his narrowness of outlook owing to a presumed overzealousness in matters of religion. It can be added that Morton and Glover were also alarmed with what they perceived as unwarranted hagiography in earlier Thompson commentary.
The last point first. It is true that Tyrrell had a high regard for Thompson’s survey achievements, having first published on this aspect in the 1880s. [26] His book-length Introduction to the Narrative was not a biography proper however, and tends to deal mainly with matters of chronology, events and description. A rather minor aside, following his citation of John J. Bigsby’s description of Thompson, was seized upon by Morton and Glover and given far more weight than it deserved. Read in context, it is hardly an example of hagiography gone to seed. Here is how it appeared. (Tyrrell, 1916, p. lvii)
“Our astronomer, Mr. Thompson,” wrote Dr. Bigsby, “was a firm churchman; while most of our men were Roman Catholics. Many a time have I seen these uneducated Canadians most attentively and thankfully listen, as they sat upon some bank of shingle, to Mr. Thompson, while he read to them, in most extraordinarily pronounced French, three chapters out of the Old Testament, and as many out of the New, adding such explanations as seemed to him suitable.” Thompson’s piety was not of an obtrusive sort, but there were few white men in the West in those early days who bore so consistently, as he did the white flower of a blameless life.
Subsequent and repeated citation of this concluding sentence has tended to ignore the words “so consistently” in favour of a reading by which Tyrrell was allegedly attempting to bestow some kind of secular sainthood on Thompson.
A. S. Morton’s questioning of Thompson reputation derived mainly from an assessment of his actions at certain presumed critical episodes of North American history. Of special interest was the summer of 1810 when Thompson had been asked by his partners to return over the mountains and reach the mouth of the Columbia River. The “great man” theory of history was alive and well in the whigish attitude, which allowed Morton (and Glover) to infer Thompson later bore some kind of responsibility for the loss of the Oregon territory to the Americans. [27] In documentary terms, it was a fanciful notion. There was quite sufficient evidence at hand when both men were writing to demonstrate how closely allied were the North West Company and Astor interests, and that Thompson was therefore not involved in any kind of meaningful “race for the pacific.” He was sent west by his partners to consolidate the trade relations already established on the upper and middle Columbia River and then meet the Astorians, substantially also his “partners”, at the river mouth. [28]
Morton’s view of Thompson was relatively mild compared with what was to be served up by Glover. When his 1962 edition of Thompson’s Narrative appeared, with its revisionist Introduction, Hugh Dempsey called it “a shocker” and Victor Hopwood remained puzzled. [29] The tenor of that introduction was not totally unexpected in the early 1950s; Glover had published two articles, one dealing with Thompson and one with Hearne. [30] It is difficult to credit that these two pieces issued from the same pen. His ‘Note on Richardson’s “Digression” of Hearne’s Journey’ was lucid, balanced, logical, to the point, and based on a sound sifting of the evidence. The item on Thompson was the very opposite. Written in the hope that Thompson’s Narrative would shed some useful light on Hearne, Glover came away disappointed. On the basis of no convincing evidence, the author leap-frogged from inference to inference, searching for an explanation for why Thompson had developed such a “hatred of Hearne.” Glover had forgotten that Thompson’s memoir was not the product of an historian; it was the late recollection of an aged and sick fur trader-surveyor who happened to have done some rather good science along the way. As suggested earlier, The Narrative makes almost no mention of Hearne and it is unlikely that Thompson heard much of Hearne between 1785 and at least 1812. It is not even clear if he ever saw the published Journey of 1795. If he did, it was probably only later in life when he himself started to think of writing his own personal account. (Jenish, 270-71).
Glover’s review of Thompson’s account of Hearne’s surrender of Prince of Wales Fort in 1782 suggests that he did not title his article correctly. If Thompson was an unreliable “witness” it is surely first because, as Glover well describes, Thompson arrived at Churchill two years later as an impressionable fourteen year old and therefore, was not a “witness” at all. Second, Thompson, after he did arrive, would surely have heard much gossip and contradictory accounts about this still recent event from the veterans at Churchill. Glover’s assertion that Thompson later had selective memory loss with respect to Hearne is not credible. [31] Thompson composed his Narrative with the help not just of his own notebooks, (which he had been keeping since at least 1785), but certainly from other things read and heard over the years. [32] Thompson’s account of Hearne, error-ridden as it is, does not lead to the conclusion of deep-seated and everlasting malice. Tyrrell drew quite a different conclusion about Thompson’s early dealings with Hearne, seeing the older man as a likely source of inspiration. [33] If Hearne was really the “bête noire” Glover suggests, one would expect to find evidence of this obsession scattered throughout his Journals and the Narrative. [34]
The other presumed errors in Thompson’s account of Hearne would normally lead an historian to ask: where did these ideas come from? The terse and staccato nature of his passage on Hearne is quite representative of Thompson’s style in the Narrative. He was after all, a man in a hurry, with little time or capacity to research minor incidents. Thompson’s account of Hearne smacks partially of a borrowing of some other news account he may have garnered. The assertion that before his death Hearne associated with the hard-drinking members of the Buck’s Club in London for example, surely required closer contemporary investigation. While Glover found no evidence for anything convincing in this regard, Speck did look into the matter carefully. His research was of interest but inconclusive, and he chose to suspend judgement on the matter. [35] It is clear however, that there have been several manifestations of the Buck’s Club since the 1720s, and that notices of it were circulating in the 1840s when Thompson was preparing his Narrative. [36] Despite a certain piquant brilliance to his scholarship, Glover served Thompson very ambiguously as an editor. No point seemed too small for Glover to question. The seemingly innocent observation made by Thompson that Hearne was a devotee of Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary was scrutinized for its true subversive intent. Having looked at the Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire, (Paris: 1882) Glover determined that there had probably been no English translation of the Dictionary in 1784. Suspicious that Thompson was again playing with his readers out of hostility for Hearne, he asserted that as Hearne could probably not read French, was it likely he would have a copy of the Dictionnaire Philosophique Portatif ? It is quite likely in fact. After Voltaire published his English Letters in 1727, he gained a large and steady English readership. [37] The Dictionnaire (1764) was quickly translated into English as early as 1765 and again in 1766. [38] Voltaire’s closest modern student has remarked: “Its effect was immediately felt ... condemned by the establishments, religious and govern-mental ...” [39] In short, as with many condemned books, Voltaire’s turned into another best-seller. In principle, as McGoogan has shown, it would be quite natural for the young former naval officer to have been one of the first in the English bookstalls in 1765, searching out Voltaire’s new book.
Glover raised the question of Thompson’s ethical behaviour with respect to his original employer, the Hudson’s Bay Company, at the time he transferred to the North West Company in the spring of 1797. Despite Thompson’s claim, given to his associate Malcolm Ross, that his “time was out” with the company, had he not, in fact, broken his contract obligations by not giving the required one year notice, thereby leaving his employers in the lurch? [40] It is a fair enough question, although one that did not bother Hopwood much. [41] Nor does Jenish spend much time on it, agreeing with Hopwood on the importance of the decision, one that allowed Thompson to move forward and pursue his real surveying interests rather than take on a new and higher administrative position that he had not sought. (84-6) What needs to be amplified with respect to Glover’s question is the nature of managementlabour relations in the fur trade, whereby men deposited in a wilderness setting were expected to give such lengthy notice. The condition imposed by the HBC was surely exceptional, even by eighteenth century standards. In addition, the notion that Thompson acted dishonourably on this occasion needs to be assessed in terms other than just company expectations. Were the terms of his original apprenticeship and subsequent contracts being lived up to? Thompson clearly felt they were not. Personal honour was a matter of passionate concern to many employees in those times, especially among the ambitious. Moreau has documented an instance of the role of honour in employee attitudes, relating to Thompson himself, shortly before his move to the NWC. [42]
The early years of Thompson’s work with the North West Company are well described by Jenish, with due reference to many of the leading personalities of that firm. Thompson’s rise in the company was rapid and the partners clearly felt they had had their money’s worth from his extensive survey activities. He was offered two shares in the company in the summer of 1803, but not confirmed as a partner until 1804. (116-17) Given the paucity of information that Thompson left about his personal background and family life, Jenish is not able to shed much new light on his Isle à la Crosse marriage, in 1799, to Charlotte, the mixed-blood daughter of North West Company partner, Patrick Small and a Cree woman of unknown name. (108-10) From his concluding chapter however, it would appear that it was a very successful and warm marriage, perhaps even tinged with a deep romanticism, consolidated by many children and much mutual star-gazing. (282-3)
By 1803, Thompson was at least partially engaged in bringing about a major advance for the NWC by means of what has come to be called “the Columbian Enterprise” a term initiated by A. S. Morton. [43] This stood for the project of crossing the Rocky Mountains and extending the fur trade into the valleys of the Kootenay and Columbia River Valleys, and indeed, to the orient. This phase of Thompson’s career has been well documented over the years. [44] If one begins with the dispatch of Le Blanc and La Gassé across the mountains in 1801, the final advance to the mouth of the Columbia River can be conceived as a ten-year episode. [45]
It was the later stages of this process that exercised Morton and Glover considerably. Their criticisms grew out of the following sequence of events. In the summer of 1810, Thompson was headed east for Montreal, on furlough. When he reached Rainy Lake House, he received a dispatch from his partners who had already wound up the annual July meeting at Fort William. Thompson was to turn around and cross over the mountains and take an expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River. It was later alleged that he was to head off John Jacob Astor’s planned American expedition by land and sea. Thompson arrived at Columbia River mouth in July 1811, a few months after the Astorians. The Morton-Glover view was that Thompson, by taking his time and not demonstrating an adequate level of fortitude against the Peigan Indians en route, helped cause the British Empire to later lose out on the claim to the Oregon country. [46]
Most of the fallacies underlying this interpretation have been put to rest by Belyea and others. [47] We have already dealt with the question of the close relationship of the North West Company with Astor’s interests. There is one remaining aspect of the controversy however, upon which Jenish sheds new light. This concerns the question of where Thompson was for several weeks in the fall of 1810 while in the vicinity of Rocky Mountain House, prior to his crossing of the Rockies. For this time Thompson’s Journals are either missing or were not maintained. Morton and Glover thought there was something sinister about this gap in the record, a covering of his tracks so to speak, when they would have revealed a want of both courage and vision during the so-called “race to the Pacific.” [48] In reviewing the Journals of Alexander Henry the Younger for these months, Jenish concluded something quite different: that Thompson had become temporarily lost during his effort to avoid confrontation with Peigan warriors who were closely watching the entranceway to Howse Pass, a considerable distance west of Rocky Mountain House. Thompson eventually worked his way back from the Kootenai Plains, near the pass entrance, to the mouth of the Brazeau River on the North Saskatchewan, having already decided to cross the mountains via the more northerly Athabasca Pass. It was at the Brazeau that William Henry, then at Rocky Mountain House, found him. Some debate ensued about Thompson’s proposed method of crossing the mountains, but in the end, Thompson had his way. (158-65). The circumstances of the moment were not ideal for keeping a detailed journal account, but if Thompson did maintain one for this period, it is not the only one missing from the record. [49]
Once one excepts the larger evidence for the premise of the trip to the Columbia, that it was a normal trade expedition, designed to consolidate past achievements on the upper and middle sections of the trading area, then the great (indeed, inevitable) amount of time taken to cross the mountains in the winter of 1810-11 is explained. Crossing the Athabasca Pass was no small matter. The current project involved the transport of goods, complicated by transportation problems occasioned by the lateness of the season. Once across the mountains Thompson had to innovate cedar canoe construction owing to the absence of suitable birch. [50] By taking time to trade throughout the established NWC territory along the Kootenay and Columbia, the position could be taken, from a business point of view, that the 1/3 agreement with Astor applied only to the new opportunities on the lower Columbia but not to those that had already been achieved as far west as Spokane House. Thompson’s planting of the Union Jack well west of that point, while en route, was a symbolic, if somewhat hopeful, gesture, in favour of this territorial business decision.
A facsimile of the North West Company map prepared by explorer and mapmaker David Thompson. Thompson’s map covered an area of two million three hundred and forty thousand square miles, from Lake Superior and Hudson Bay to the mouth of the Columbia River.
Source: National Geographic Magazine, 1996.
The great difficulty with the Morton-Glover view of the Columbian enterprise involved two factors, aside from their primary ignoring of the importance of the NWCAmerican Fur Company relationship. The first concerned all this transport of cargo. If the rationale for the trip to the Columbia had been to arrive at the river mouth in advance of Astor, Thompson and a small party would have been dispatched by express canoes, travelling light, with supplies sent along behind only in the spring by a different party. None of that happened nor was it directed to happen. Second, both historians, while aware of the issue, seem to have underestimated the hostility of the Peigan to traders crossing the mountains at this time, particularly in the wake of recent Peigan losses to the trans-mountain Salish, now armed with guns provided by Traders such as Thompson. [51] Jenish’s account indicates that Thompson did not underestimate this threat in the fall of 1810. (151) He also appropriately draws attention to the little understood relationship between the Nor’Westers and the Astorians. (153-8) Somewhat ironically, Jenish points to Thompson’s great eagerness to explore the full range of the Columbia in the years before 1810 and the reluctance of his Montreal partners to have him do so. (153-4). Thompson’s quick turnabout at Rainy Lake in the summer of 1810 was motivated not just by a willingness to follow orders, but by his own wish to complete his map. Having arrived at the mouth of the Columbia, he made sure he filled in the remaining blanks before returning east.
The remaining chapters are devoted to Thompson’s life and times after his relocation to the Montreal area in 1812. Jenish gives great weight to these later years, which have generally been viewed as less interesting than his time in Western Canada. He played a part in the War of 1812 and also worked rapidly to complete his main task in life, his great map, which he delivered ahead of schedule to his partners in the spring of 1814. Thompson’s later work on the eastern half of the international boundary, being official in nature, was also of great importance, as were his surveys made between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River. [52] We also learn much about his successes and failures in business, little known details about his family life, and the events, which led him to finally compose his Narrative. Drawing heavily on the Journals, Jenish’s treatment of Thompson in old age is both original and moving.
What is most remarkable, perhaps, is that the Narrative came to be written at all, given Thompson’s financial problems, declining health and sudden total blindness in early 1848. [53] Part of the answer lies in the persistence of his son-in-law, William Scott, who obtained not only a second medical opinion but a third. Dr. Henry Howard’s pioneering cataract treatments restored both of Thompson’s eyes in 1848, thus giving the old explorer a second wind. (276-7)
Both of these studies will reward the reader, not only for their telling of a good story, but also for pointing in some new directions. McGoogan gives us enough to convince us that Hearne was a man of many parts, much in tune with radical social ideals of the Enlightenment, made so largely through his own worldly experiences. Jenish portrays Thompson in a balanced way, bringing us back towards Tyrrell’s original assessment, since that is where the evidence leads. What remains to do with Thompson perhaps, is develop a more complete account of his religious outlook and the way in which he too, was shaped somewhat by Enlightenment ideas. Norman Hampson has reminded us of how the ideas of Newton were strongly taken up by Voltaire, both men finding God to be, not a clock-maker, as Descartes would have it, but a real force that intervened on occasion, to set the clock aright. [54] Voltaire’s critique of religion was very much institutional, and he remained a believer of sorts. By osmosis, these intellectual structures of developing modern astronomy were absorbed by Thompson readily from an early age. This came not from original sources, but from school texts, practical field necessity and guide books. Sextants and nautical almanacs had been his steady companions. Like Newton, he sensed no inconsistency between the new science and the God of his fathers. A lifetime of star-gazing may turn men into poets however, and the openness with which he recorded the details of his many interviews with Native peoples about matters cosmological, hints at the possibility that despite his love of the Bible, he had long ago recognized the relativity of all outward beliefs.
Finally, there is a common difficulty in these books concerning documentation. It is probably not the wish of authors, but instead a parsimonious attitude in many publishing houses, that has produced a trend towards the exclusion of foot or endnotes. This is puzzling in an age of instant computer-assisted typesetting. Given that both Hearne and Thompson have suffered greatly from unsubstantiated inferences often based on, at best, circumstantial evidence, close documentation in biographical treatments is important. In the case of McGoogan’s book, the publishers should have insisted upon close footnoting; and in the case of Jenish’s book, the author should have insisted upon it.
David Thompson in the Athabaska Pass, 1810. Drawing by C. W. Jefferys.
Source: Library and Archives Canada
1. Eric Ross, Beyond the River and the Bay (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970).
2. Bruce Haig, ed. In the Footsteps of Thomas Blackiston - 1858. (Lethbridge: Historic Trails Society of Alberta, 1982); A Look at Peter Fidler’s Journal. Journal of a Journey from Buckingham House to the Rocky Mountains in 1792 and 1793. (Lethbridge: Historical Research Centre, 2002).
3. Jack Nisbet, Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across Western North America (Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1994); Barbara Belyea, ed. David Thompson’s Columbia Journals (Montreal: McGill- Queens, 1994); Barbara Belyea, ed. A Year Inland: The Journal of a Hudson’s Bay Company Winter. (Waterloo: Wilfred University Press, 2000).
4. See Elliott Coues, ed. New Light on the Early History of the Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson ; J. B. Tyrrell, ed. Samuel Hearne, A Journey to the Northern Ocean, (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1911); The Narrative of David Thompson (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1916); The Journals of Hearne and Turnor (Toronto The Champlain Society, 1934).
5. A. S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870 - 1871. 2nd ed. Lewis G. Thomas, ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972); Richard Glover, ‘Introduction’ David Thompson’s Narrative, 1784 - 1812. (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1962); Victor G. Hopwood, ‘Centenary of An Explorer’Queen’s Quarterly, 64 (1) (1957) 41-49; ‘David Thompson and his Maps’ Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Conference of the Association of Canadian Map Librarians (Ottawa: Association of Canadian Map Librarians, 1974); ‘More Light on David Thompson’ The Beaver 288 (Autumn, 1957), 58; ‘New Light on David Thompson’ The Beaver 288 (Summer, 1957), 26-31; Gordon Speck, Samuel Hearne and the Northwest Passage (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press 1963).
6. Summary treatments did appear, such as James K. Smith, David Thompson: Fur Trader, Explorer, Geographer (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1971), and Rowland Bond, The Original Northwester: David Thompson and the Native Tribes of North America (Nine Mile Falls, WA.: Spokane House Enterprises, 1971).
7. See ‘Gayle Veinotte in Conversation with Ken McGoogan’, Fast Forward Weekly, 8 January 2004.
8. See the Review by Russell A. Potter, in Arctic Book Review, 5(2), 2003.
10. Richard Glover, ed. Samuel Hearne, A Journey to the Norther Ocean (Toronto: Macmillan,1958), pp. vii-viii; Speck, (1963), p. 8.
11. See J. Tuzo Wilson, ‘New Light on Hearne’ The Beaver, Outfit 280 (2) (1949), 14-18.
12. Tyrrell, ed. (1916), p. 9, n.2; Richard Glover, ‘A Note on Richardson’s “Digression Concerning Hearne’s Route”’ Canadian Historical Review, 32 (3) (1951), 252-63; Glover, ed. (1958), pp. xli-xlii.
13. See Glover, ed. (1958), pp. xii-xiv. Hearne had little good to say about Norton, but Norton’s reputation has been somewhat improved by the account given of him by Sylvia Van Kirk. See Dictionary of Canadian Biography, IV (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 583-5.
14. Tyrrell, ed. (1916), pp. 26-27; On the evolution of Hearne’s manuscript see Ian S. McLaren’s masterful essay ‘Samuel Hearne’s Accounts of the Massacre at Bloody Falls, 17 July, 1771’ Ariel: Review of International English Literature, 22 (1) (January, 1991), 25-51.
15. H. F. Watson, ‘A note on the Ancient Mariner’ Philosophical Quarterly, 13 (1934), 83-84.
16. Cf. I. S. MacLaren, (1991), 3-32; 38.
17. See Elsie Day, An Old Westminster Endowment: Being the History of the Grey Coat Hospital As Recorded in the Minute Books. (London: Hugh Rees, 1902).
18. Tyrrell, ed. (1916), pp. xxiv -xxvi; Richard Ruggles, “Hospital Boys of the Bay” The Beaver Outfit 308 (2) (1977), 4-11.
19. Charles Lamb, “Recollections of Christ’s Hospital” in Complete Works and Letters of Charles Lamb (New York: Random House, 1935), pp. 12-21.
20. Richard Glover, “The Witness of David Thompson” Canadian Historical Review, 31(1) (1950), 32-3.
21. Robert Campbell, A History of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street, Montreal. (Montreal: W. Drysdale, 1887), Ch. 7.
22. Tyrrell, ed. (1916), p. liv.
23. See Gerald R. Cragg, The Church and the Age of Reason, 1648 - 1789 (London: Penguin, 1977), p. 154 f.; G.R. Balleine, A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (London : Longman’s Green 1933), pp. 50-64.
24. Tyrrell, ed. (1916); Glover, ed. (1962); and see Notes 5 and 44.
25. On these aspects see Hugh Dempsey, ed. “David Thompson’s Journey to the Red Deer River” Alberta Historical Review 13 (1965), 1-8; “David Thompson on the Peace River” Alberta Historical Review 14:1 (1966), 1-11; 14:2 (1966), 14-21; 14:4 (1966), 14-19; “Thompson’s Journey to the Bow River” Alberta Historical Review, 13 (2) (1965), 7-15; Belyea, ed. (1994); Nisbet, (1994); Allan H. Smith, “An Ethnohistorical Analysis of David Thompson’s 1809 - 1811 Journeys in the Lower Pend Oreille Valley, Northwestern Washington” Ethnohistory, 8 (4) (1961), 309-81; W. Raymond Wood, “David Thompson at the Mandan - Hidatsa Villages, 1797 -98: The Original Journals”. Ethnohistory 24 (1977), 329-42; W. Raymond Wood, and Thomas D. Thiessen, eds. Early Fur Trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738 - 1818. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. In more general terms, see Don W. Thompson, Men and Meridians.The History of Mapping and Surveying In Canada. (Ottawa: Department of Mines and Technical Surveys. 1969), Vol. 1, Ch. 14.
26. J. B. Tyrrell, “Brief Narrative of the Journeys of David Thompson” Proceedings of the Canadian Institute. Toronto. 3rd Series. 6 (1887 - 88), 135-60. See also his “David Thompson, a great geographer” Geographical Journal 27 (1) (1911), 49-58.
27. Morton, (1973), pp. 489-495; Glover, (1962), p. xlvii f.
28. See W. S. Wallace, ed. Documents Relating to the North West Company (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1934), pp. 239-45; 266-68; Partners of the North West Company to William McGillivray, n.d. [c. July, 1810]. Astor Papers, Coe Collection of Western Americana, Yale University. [Published also in Yale University Gazette, XXIV, Oct. 1949, pp. 53-4.] On Thompson’s meeting with the Astorians in the summer of 1811, see W. Kaye Lamb’s Introduction to his edition of The Journal of Gabriel Franchère (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1969), pp. 8-12. See also Barbara Belyea, “The Columbian Enterprise” and “A. S. Morton: An Historical Exemplum” B.C. Studies, 86 (Summer, 1990), 3-27.
29. See Dempsey, “David Thompson Under Scrutiny” Alberta Historical Review 12 (1) (1964), 22-28; Victor Hopwood, “David Thompson’s Narrative” The Beaver, 294 (Winter, 1965), 55-6.
30. Richard Glover, “The Witness of David Thompson” Canadian Historical Review, 31 (1) (1950), 25-38; ‘A Note on John Richardson’s “Digression Concerning Hearne’s Route”’ Canadian Historical Review, 32 (3) (1951), 252-63.
32. For the dates of Thompson’s notebooks, see William E. Moreau, ‘“To be fit for publication”; The Editorial History of David Thompson’s Travels, 1840- 1916’ Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, 39 (2) (2002), 17 note 6.
33. Tyrrell, ed. (1916), p. xxvi.
35. Glover (1950), 33; Speck (1963), p. 309.
36. Some accounts state that the Noble Order of Bucks was a convivial society that met at the Turk’s Head Tavern, Gerrard Street in Soho. See also W. Cubbon, “Antient and Noble Order of Bucks” Proceedings of the Island of Man History and Antiquarian Society, 5 (1) (1942) 63-69.
37. Nicholas Cronk, ed. Voltaire. Letters Concerning the English Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. xx f.
38. See Hywel B. Evans, “A Provisional Bibliography of English Editions and Translations of Voltaire” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, VIII (1959), 58.
39. Theodore Besterman, ed. Voltaire. Philosophical Dictionary (London: Penguin, 1972), p. 6.
40. Glover, ed. (1962), pp. xl-xli.
41. Victor G. Hopwood. “David Thompson’s Narrative, 1784 - 1812" Beaver, 294 (Winter, 1963), 55-6.
42. William E. Moreau, ‘“Tell me if your letter did not Crave such an Answer as you got”: The Thompson-Linklater Correspondence of 1796.’ in: David G. Malaher, comp. Papers of the Rupert’s Land Colloquium 2004. (Winnipeg: The Centre for Rupert’s Land Studies, 2004), pp. 497-505.
43. The pedigree of the term, and its promotion by Sir. Alexander Mackenzie, is discussed in Belyea (1990), pp. 3-4.
44. See Belyea, (1994); T. C. Elliott, ed. “Journal of David Thompson” Oregon Historical Quarterly 15 (1914), 39-63; 104-25; “David Thompson’s Journeys in the Spokane Country” Washington Historical Quarterly 8 (1917) 183-87; 9 (1918), 11-16, 103-06, 169-73, 284-87; 10 (1919) 17-20; “David Thompson’s Journeys in Idaho” Washington Historical Quarterly 11 (1920), 97-103; “David Thompson and Beginnings in Idaho” Oregon Historical Quarterly 21 (1920), 49-61; “The Discovery of the Source of the Columbia River” Oregon Historical Quarterly 26 (1925) 23-49; “David Thompson’s Journeys in the Pend Oreille Country” Washington Historical Quarterly 23 (1) 18- 24; 23 (2) (1932), 88-93; 23(3) (1932), 173-76; M. Catherine White, ed. David Thompson’s Journals Relating to Montana and Adjacent Regions, 1808 - 1812 Missoula: Montana State University Press, 1950; and Nisbet (1994).
45. See Claude E. Schaeffer, Le Blanc and La Gasse: Two Predecessors of David Thompson in the Columbia River Plateau. Browning: Museum of the Plains Indian. Department of the U.S. Interior. 1966.
46. A. S. Morton, “The North West Company’s Columbian Enterprise and David Thompson” Canadian Historical Review 17:3 (Sept. 1936), 266-88; Morton, (1973), pp. 485-95; Glover, ed. (1962), pp. xlvii-lxiv. See also Belyea (1990), p. 17 and J. B. Tyrrell, “David Thompson and the Rocky Mountains” Canadian Historical Review 15 (1) (1934), 41.
47. Barbara Belyea, “The Columbian Enterprise” and “A. S. Morton: An Historical Exemplum” B.C. Studies, 86 (Summer, 1990), 3-27; H. D. Smiley, “The Dalliance of David Thompson” The Beaver 303 (3) (1972), 40-47.
48. See note 46.
49. Glover, ed. (1962), p. xlix; Belyea (1990), p. 7 n.12.
50. Morton mentions this fact as though it is just another minor task among many. Morton (1973), p. 493. Glover gives much closer attention to this event. Glover, ed. (1962), p. lxii.
51. Morton (1973), p. 485; Glover, ed. (1962), p. lxiii.
52. See Joseph Delafield, The Unfortified Boundary: A Diary of the first survey of the Canadian Boundary Line from St. Regis to the Lake of the Woods, by Major Joseph Delafield. American Agent Under Articles VI and VII of the Treaty of Ghent. (Robert McElroy and Thomas Riggs, eds. New York: 1943); Florence B. Murray, ed. Muskoka and Haliburton, 1615 - 1875. (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1963), pp. 85-96; Don W. Thompson, (1969) Vol. 1: Prior to 1868. Ch. 14.
53. The story of the final publication of the Narrative has been well described in Moreau, (2002).
54. Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment, Rev. ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), pp. 77-79.
Page revised: 15 January 2011
