COMPLETING THE JOURNEY A 200 YEAR LEGAcY Exploring the Columbia river For more than 40 years, past the present site of Mount Thompson's Columbia River­ Athabasca Pass route was the Revelstoke National Park main continental overland route from the Arctic Ocean and Lake Superior to the In the summer of 1811, Thompson travelled south from Pacific. Voyageur "express" Kootenae House and rejoined the Columbia River overland in parties carrying company what is now Washington State. His party canoed down-river to mail took three and a half the coast, only to find that the Pacific Fur Company ship had months to make the trip reached the river's mouth first. The Americans had claimed between York Factory on Hudson Bay and the mouth the area and erected "Fort Astoria" that spring. After a week of the Columbia River. as guests at Fort Astoria, Thompson's party travelled north on Settlers and missionaries the Columbia to the river's hairpin turn around the Selkirk often accompanied the Mountains. When they had passed the area that is now Mount voyageurs on the river and Revelstoke National Park and reached Boat Encampment, many were lost in the deadly Thompson became the fIrst European to have travelled the rapids that existed just out entire length of the Columbia River. of view on the river below this viewpoint. Thompson journeyed past the Mount Revelstoke area twice during the following eight months - heading south in the Today, the Columbia River autumn to over-winter in Montana, and travelling north in flows quietly past Mount Revelstoke National Park. the spring of 1812. It was his last trip on the Columbia. The deadly rapids on the river Thompson paddled north to Boat Encampment, crossed below have been diminished Athabasca Pass on foot and travelled by canoe to eastern by the Revelstoke Darn. Canada, never to return to the west again. Boat Encampment now lies beneath 160 m (525 ft) of Settling near Montreal, Thompson was apPointed to the com­ water, behind the Mica Dam. mission that established the Canada-US boundary after the War David Thompson's historic campsite is now commemorated Let the story of David Thompson and of 1812. Had his boundary proposals prevailed, almost all of the mapping of the Columbia River Washington State and much of northern Idaho would be part of at a viewpoint near Mica, 150 Canada. Until his death in 1857, Thompson continued work on km north of Revelstoke on Highway 23N. unfold ... his atlas of Canada from Hudson's Bay to the PaCllC Ocean. Canad!i THE GREAT CROSSING KOO A WINTER RIVER OF THE ROCKY KOO AT BOAT THE WEST MOUNTAINS SINT ENCAMPMENT , By 1800, fur trader David Thompson From Kootanae House, " had spent more than ten years Thompson explored present ~:i " 'I 18th Century exploring and surveying west of day Montana, Washington In the autumn of 1810, a Pacific !' European explorers were the Great Lakes. His employer, the and Idaho in 1808 and 1809, Fur Company ship left New York bound certain of the existence of a North West Company, knew that US and established tracting posts for the mouth of the Columbia River. water transportation route President Jefferson had dispatched on Lake Pend d'Oreille in By then, the North West Company across northwestern North had directed Thompson to follow the Lewis and Clark in 1803 to find a Idaho and the Clark Fork Columbia down to the ocean and America. Geographers and water route to the Pacific Ocean. River in Montana. Thompson establish a company presence on the sCientists believed that a Within two years, the American was guided through. the coast ahead of the Americans. A dispute series of connecting rivers team crossed the Rocky Mountains lands west of the Continental between the Peigan (Blackfoot) and could link Hudson Bay to the and reached the coast. Thompson Divide by the people who the Flathead blocked Thompson's usual Pacific Ocean, and eliminate route over Howse Pass, and he detoured was sent to find a river route across had lived on the land for north to follow the Athabasca and the need for a long, perilous the northern Rockies to counteract centuries. Thompson was Whirlpool rivers through. what is journey around Cape Horn at the potential American threat to respected by the First now Jasper National Park. the tip of South America. It business. Nations people who guided was widely held that a "great him and traded with him. Struggling through. deep snows on the river of the west" flowed Leaving Rocky Mountain House on the Divide, his party made it down to the from the Continental Divide east side of the mountains in 1807, confluence of the Wood, Canoe and down to the Pacific Ocean. Thompson made his first successful Columbia rivers in January 181l. Maritime fur traders from crossing of the Rockies at Howse Thompson was forced to spend the * entire winter there at the "big bend" Pass. From the pass, Thompson Boston discovered the mouth of the Columbia River, at a site which followed the Blaeberry River down His Salish-Flathead* * of this great river in 1 792 him later became known as Boat u.nd named it tbe C(l]umbia. to the Columbia River, but he did companions named Encampment. Over the winter, he deter­ not recognize the north-flowing HKOO KOO SINT" mined that the river that he had named Columbia as the" great river of the Kootanae was actually the Columbia, the west" and instead turned (the man who looks at the great river of the west. If he had upstream (south). That season, stars) for his nightly orig1na.lly turned north rather than he established Kootanae House, south at the confluence of the Blaeberry his fur trading post at present-day sextant navigation. and Columbia, he would have discovered , Invermere, B.C. the route to the sea four years earlier.