The Writings of David Thompson, Volume 1: The Travels, 1850 Version

David Thompson’s Travels is not only the account of a remarkable life in the fur trade but an extended meditation on the land and Native peoples of western North America. The tale spans the years 1784 to 1812 and extends from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, from Athabasca to the Missouri River. A distinguished literary work, the Travels alternates between the expository prose of the scientist and the vivid language of the storyteller, animated throughout by a restless spirit of inquiry and a sense of wonder. In the first of three volumes that will finally bring all of Thompson’s writings together, editor William Moreau presents the Travels narrative as it existed in 1850, when the author was forced to abandon his work, and supplements it with a textual introduction, extensive annotations, and historical and modern maps. David Thompson (1770-1857) is considered by many to have been the most important surveyor of North America. His achievements–mapping the Saskatchewan River, the great bend of the Missouri River, the Great Lakes, and the headwaters of the Mississippi as well as the Columbia watershed–are the stuff of legend. William E. Moreau is a teacher with the Toronto District School Board and a sessional lecturer with the University of Toronto at Scarborough. “Moreau has tackled the thorny text of David Thompson’s Travels with a lucid new transcription that sweeps readers across the breadth of North America. Along the way Thompson’s disparate parts assemble themselves into a full-blown character, possessed of wit, energy, curiosity, and a keen sense of the human and geographical landscapes through which he passes.” — Jack Nisbet, author of Sources of the River and The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest “Thompson’s descriptions of his experiences transport the reader to the era of Euro-American contact with Indigenous people in the pre-colonial West like no other — his observations are among the clearest and most perceptive written during the period. This is an important work and deserving of a wide general audience.” — William L. Lang, Portland State University “Moreau integrates new materials and ensures that previously excluded material is now accessible. Scholars have been waiting some time for a complete Thompson edition, and this will be used and admired by historians and anthropologists throughout the United States and Canada.” — Frits Pennekoek, Athabasca University