Chapter V: Eight Years of Trading

The report which Thompson made to his employers after his return to Grand Portage was of immense value to them. They now had a clear idea of the whole stretch of country from Sault Ste. Marie to the upper waters of the Missouri river, and were in a position to rearrange their trading houses to meet the needs of the time. Similar work remained to be done in the other regions to which the interests of the Company extended. But the same haste was not required, and the surveys could be pushed forward with less difficulty and expense in connection with what was the main object of the partners, that is the prosecution of the trade in furs. Thompson was therefore requested to undertake some of the actual work of trading, with freedom to make such journeys of exploration as he saw fit.

The eight years following therefore mark a new period in his service with the North West Company, during which his activities carried him far and wide along the great waterways of the interior. Throughout these years he exercised, to the full, the qualities of mind and character which made him such a unique surveyor. His bulky note books were crammed with memoranda gathered with painstaking accuracy and checked with minute care. From time to time, where a less hurried visit to one of the more comfortable trading houses made it possible, he added his newly acquired information to the map which he had in hand. With each report that he made to Headquarters, the picture of the Great West gradually took shape. Its physical features were delineated; its wild life was noted and classified; its native populations, their numbers, their racial affinities and languages, their manners and customs were as far as possible described. This was indeed wizardry, as his ignorant French-Canadian and Indian followers imagined; but it was the wizardry of science, which, by the slow accumulation of ascertained facts, lays the whole world of nature at the feet of civilized man.

In the summer of 1798, the attention of traders was largely directed to the western forest country, which lies beyond the divide separating the waters of the upper Saskatchewan from the basin of the Peace and Athabaska rivers. Twenty years before, Peter Pond had penetrated into this region as far as Lake Athabaska, and there established a post. At Lake Athabaska, ten years later, Roderick Mackenzie had built Fort Chippewyan, from which Sir Alexander had set out on his two famous voyages, the one down the Mackenzie to the Arctic, the other up the Peace to its headwaters and from thence across British Columbia to the Pacific. Apart, however, from the activity centred in Lake Athabaska, little had been done as yet to explore the possibilities of trade in what is now northern Alberta.

Thompson was therefore instructed to proceed to Lake la Biche or Red Deer lake, whose waters fall into the Athabaska river about fifty miles below Athabaska Landing. On the 14th of July, he set forth from Grand Portage with the Churchill river brigade. By the middle of August they had reached Cumberland House, and a week later they had crossed over Frog Portage to the main stream of the Churchill.

From this point west the route lay through a region as yet new to Thompson. As he ascended the river to Isle à la Crosse, he found that the country was still composed of the denuded rock with which he was familiar on the lower stretches of the river. Ridges of this rock, crossing the valley of the stream from point to point, gave it the character of an irregular chain of lakes with many portages and falls. Like the rest of the stony country, it was somewhat poor in game and fur-bearing animals, although many of the lakes teemed with fish.

From Isle à la Crosse to the valley of the Athabaska there were two possible routes. To the north there was Turnor's old course by way of Methy Portage and Clearwater river. To the south, the Beaver river led through a district of plain and forest to its headwaters at Beaver lake, from which there was an easy portage over the height of land to Lake la Biche. Thompson followed the Beaver river, and arrived at Lake la Biche in time to build a post before the beginning of winter.

He was now at the southern end of that vast stretch of country which he calls the Great Western Forest, and almost in the same latitude as that of Reed lake in the Muskrat country where he had spent the winter of 1794-5. He was thus in a position to compare the climate and soil of this region with that of his old home on the eastern or "Siberian" side of North America. Throughout the long winter months, he kept as usual a careful record of the temperatures registered from day to day by his thermometer. At Reed lake, the temperature for December had varied from +31° to -45° with a mean of -10° F. For January it had varied from +11° to -47° with a mean of -21.3°, and for February from +39° to -31° with a mean of +6°. At Lake la Biche he found that although in each of the three winter months, the mercury sank as low as 48° below zero, it rose at times as high as 43° above, and that the mean for December, the coldest month, was not lower than -6.5°. Then, too, while Reed lake was hardly above the level of Hudson Bay, the country about Lake la Biche was high and dry, and the snow did not lie so thick on the ground at the end of winter. Accordingly, the rays of the sun had a chance to exert their power on the face of the land much earlier in the year, and spring burst at Lake la Biche long before winter had loosened his iron grip on the region about Reed lake.

The forests with their wild life responded generously to the less rigorous climate. In the Muskrat region, the wretched traders and Indians were forced to scour the country for fish and game in quantities sufficient to keep them alive. At Lake la Biche the waters yielded an abundant supply of fish; and during the five months that he spent at the post, Thompson saw no less than forty-nine moose and several buffalo brought in, all of which had been shot within twenty miles of the house. There also all the animals, including the precious beaver, attained their full size and development.

Thompson wished to get an idea of the extent and general character of this western forest land, and the quickest way to do so was to survey the Athabaskan waters from their sources. Accordingly, when spring opened, he rode across country southwest to Fort Augustus and from thence westward to the headwaters of the Pembina, which at this point was divided from the valley of the Saskatchewan by a narrow neck of land. Embarking on the Pembina, he followed it down till it merged with the main stream of the Athabaska river. A short excursion up the Slave Lake river enabled him to explore the shore line of Lesser Slave lake. Returning to the Athabaska, he continued along its broad stream past Athabaska Landing to the mouth of the Clearwater river, and from thence he made his way along the well-known track by Methy Portage and the Churchill to Grand Portage. Throughout the region embraced in his survey, he found little exposed rock and therefore few lakes, but what was better for the beaver many small brooks and streams which they could dam for their ponds. The country thus promised a steady yield of furs from year to year, and this, with the generous supply of game which the forest offered to trader and trapper, was enough to justify the name which it bore, "The fur-traders' paradise."

In the mad competition for pelts, the different companies could not rest content with the trade of regions already within their grasp. Each of them sought always to push further afield; for he, who could anticipate his rivals in opening new country, might plant his trading houses on the most advantageous sites and bind the Indians to himself with ties which later comers could not break. In 1790, Peter Pangman for the North-Westers had pressed along the course of the North Saskatchewan to a point five miles above its junction with the Clearwater. There from a hill top he had gazed along the line of snow-capped Rockies, and his eyes had travelled up the winding course of the river to the gap through which it issued from the mountains. From that time the partners had never ceased to dream of the wealth that lay beyond the Great Divide. In a decade the line of their trading posts had been extended to a point but three miles short of "Pangman's Pine." There, in a wide plain not far from the forks of the river, rose the walls and blockhouses of Rocky Mountain House, destined to serve as a point of departure for the invasion of the last great area as yet unknown.

But much tedious work remained to be done before it would be possible to hazard the passage of the Rocky Mountains. Besides the North Saskatchewan, there were two main branches of the South river, the Red Deer and the Bow rivers, and these had to be surveyed to their sources in the foothills in order to determine the best routes for trade. The Blackfoot, Blood, and Piegan Indians, whose encampments lay along the courses of these streams, were suspicious and hostile. They held these regions by right of conquest from the Kootenays and Snakes whom they had driven to the mountains; and these needed only to procure the muskets and ammunition which the white men could supply in order to sweep down through the rugged passes and revenge themselves for the defeats of many years. The Indians therefore steadily opposed any movement of the traders toward the Rockies, and even the stoutly fortified trading posts were hardly secure against a sudden assault.

In these circumstances, the partners at Grand Portage could think of no one better qualified than David Thompson to accomplish the objects of the company. They remembered the early connections which he had made among the Piegans during his service with the English, and they had complete confidence in his skill and daring. Thompson was accordingly taken away from his work in the Athabaska country, almost before it was well begun, and despatched up the Saskatchewan to Fort George, in order that he might draw the maps of his recent surveys and complete his preparations for the work that was now in hand.

In the spring he took horse and rode overland to Fort Augustus, and thence south along the Edmonton-Calgary line to a point just short of the present town of Lacombe. Turning west, he struck the Clearwater near its mouth and found himself at Rocky Mountain House. While he himself descended the North Saskatchewan to the elbow, making a survey as he went, he sent four French Canadians south to the Red Deer river, with orders to follow it to its junction with the main stream of the South Saskatchewan. A short distance below Rocky Mountain House, he found a party of Hudson's Bay men encamped for building. The English, as well as the Canadians, were bent on crossing the Great Divide; and it would be a serious blow if they were allowed to anticipate the North-Westers in so doing.

Accordingly, on his return to Rocky Mountain House, Thompson brought with him Duncan McGillivray from down the river, in order that he might have assistance in pressing forward his explorations. Along with McGillivray, he rode across to the Red Deer river, where he found a camp of Piegans. A short stay among them was enough to lull their suspicions; and Thompson was then able to ride twenty-two miles west to the foot of the mountains, where he expected to meet a band of Kootenays. These he found, twenty-six strong. With their women and children they had crossed the divide to meet the white traders. These Kootenays were the first of the British Columbia Indians whom Thompson had encountered. He warned them of the presence of the Piegans only a few miles east, and sent them back across the mountains. In order to avoid the Piegans, they travelled by way of the North Saskatchewan and succeeded in reaching their homes unobserved.

Meanwhile, with McGillivray and four men on horseback, Thompson crossed the Red Deer river and rode still further south to the banks of the Bow, not far from Calgary. This stream he surveyed as far east as the bend and westward to Exshaw at the foot of the mountains. McGillivray then made a traverse across from the north fork of the Saskatchewan to the valley of the Athabaska, the results of which were carefully incorporated in Thompson's notes. Thompson himself spent the rest of the winter at Rocky Mountain House, trading with the natives and taking observations to fix the location of the post.

When spring opened, he resolved to attempt a journey into the mountains by land. With a party of eight men and an Indian guide, he started westward from Rocky Mountain House. In the narrow valley of the Sheep river, the horses could go no further; and as the guide knew of no other route, they returned to the post. A second attempt, this time by canoe up the Saskatchewan, was equally unsuccessful because of the floods on the river. When Thompson returned to eastern headquarters in the spring of 1802, he was not yet able to report that he had opened a practicable route to the west of the Rockies.

What was the effect of this news upon the minds of the partners? From Thompson's subsequent movements, it is possible to surmise. The attempt to pierce the mountains from the headwaters of the Saskatchewan was for the time being abandoned, and attention was once more transferred to the north. According to the surveys already made by Thompson, the west end of Lesser Slave lake could not be more than fifty or seventy-five miles from the valley of the Peace river, up which Alexander Mackenzie had travelled ten years before. Thither Thompson was sent, with instructions to explore a route across the watershed.

From the upper end of Lesser Slave lake, he pushed his way west through a wide valley until he came to the banks of the Smoky river. On the different branches of the Saskatchewan, he had noted the seams of coal exposed along the banks. At Smoky river, the coal beds, ignited by spontaneous combustion, had been burning from beyond the memory of the oldest Indians on the river, and the dark clouds of smoke which they sent forth gave the river its name. Smoky river was a tributary of the Peace. A short journey down stream brought him to the Forks where now stands Peace River Landing.

Thompson spent the winters of 1803 and 1804 developing trade from the old posts built by Mackenzie at the Forks of the river, and westward beyond the frontiers of British Columbia. Here, as at the headwaters of the Saskatchewan, he found rivals. No sooner was he settled at the Forks than a party of XY traders from Montreal landed a few yards from the post and made preparations for the erection of a house. Thompson prosecuted his work with his accustomed vigour. In the winter of 1805, when Simon Fraser set forth on the journey that was to make him famous, he found that a base for his exploration of the Fraser river had been soundly established on the Peace by his friend and colleague David Thompson. He honoured him accordingly when he gave the name of Thompson to the greatest tributary of the Fraser river.

By the summer of 1804 Thompson was once more back at headquarters, no longer at Grand Portage (for that had been surrendered to the Americans), but at Fort William on Thunder Bay, where the dépôt of the company had now been established. In that year, the trade war with the XY Company had reached an acute stage. The Hudson's Bay Company had also reorganized their enterprises, and between them these rivals had almost succeeded in wresting from the North-Westers the trade of the Muskrat country. Thompson was therefore withdrawn from the fields of his recent activity, his chance of crossing the mountains was indefinitely postponed, and he was sent into the Muskrat country to restore the trade of that region to the Canadians.

With a heavy heart he turned his back on the far west, and entered the cold and dismal forest which he knew only to loathe. But loyalty was one of the deepest instincts of his nature, and so, with indefatigable energy, he proceeded to build new posts and explore new routes in the region north-east of Lake Winnipeg. In the course of his efforts, he carried the flag of the North-Westers to a point on South Indian lake not more than two hundred and fifty miles distant from Churchill itself. In his relations with rival traders, he exhibited a friendliness and courtesy that stands in marked contrast with the cut-throat methods too frequently adopted at critical moments of competition. The surveys begun years before, when he was working under Joseph Colen, were now triumphantly finished. Of them, a member of the Canadian Geological Survey says, "After Thompson had completed his surveys of this muskrat country, no further information was obtained about it for nearly a century, and when in 1896, I travelled through it, the only map of any service which was available was that drawn by David Thompson in 1813 from surveys made at this time."

It is sometimes imagined that the Indians a century ago existed in vast numbers; and that they were universally of a warlike and bloodthirsty disposition. This is a complete mistake. It was only in especially favourable localities that conditions were such as to promote the evolution of large bands, and generally speaking the Indian was a poor and humble creature. Lacking the power of invention, he was often satisfied to make use of utensils of the most primitive character, and he was almost, if not quite, unarmed.

Throughout the whole of the Muskrat country Thompson was able to count but ninety-two widely scattered families, each of them numbering perhaps seven souls. This gave to every human being from two to three hundred square miles of hunting country. Yet so poor was the region and so great the improvidence of its inhabitants that, in unfavourable seasons, the population was often reduced to the verge of starvation, and it was only by means of the greatest efforts that they wrested a livelihood from their gloomy land of rock and forest.

All of Thompson's efforts therefore did not avail to bring satisfactory returns from a region so poor in furs, and inhabited by such a sparse and wretched population. It was with joy in his heart that he handed over the district to a partner in the early summer of 1806, and once more wended his way back to Fort William.

Two events of personal interest in the life of Thompson occurred during these eight years. The first was his marriage to Charlotte Small, the half-breed daughter of Patrick Small, an early trader in the West. Small was a member of a famous Irish family, which had given generals and admirals to the service of the Empire. He had, however, followed the custom of the country and taken a native woman to wife. Thompson's marriage took place at Isle à la Crosse in the summer of 1799. The other event took place on November 8, 1804, although the news of it did not reach Thompson until some time later. On that date the North West Company and the XY Company agreed to cease their ruinous competition and join forces for the expansion of their trade. In the terms of agreement, the name of David Thompson appears as a partner of the United Company. This was good news in itself; but better still was the prospect that loomed up before his eyes. With the wounds of competition healed, and the Canadian trading interests now presenting a united front, the last obstacle to an aggressive forward movement was removed, and the conquest of the Rockies might finally be achieved.