BACKGROUND - Canadian Rockies: Including Banff and Jasper National Parks - page 517

Rockies' foothills about 200 years ago. There they split into bands, moving north and south
along the foothills and penetrating the wide valleys where hunting was productive. They
lived in small family-like groups and developed a lifestyle different from that of the Plains
Indians, diversifying their skills and becoming less dependent on buffalo. Moving with the
seasons, they gathered berries in fall and became excellent hunters of mountain animals.
They traveled over the mountains to trade with the Shuswap but rarely ventured onto the
plains, home of the warlike Peigan, Blackfoot, and Blood bands of the Blackfoot Confed-
eracy. The Stoney were a steadfast yet friendly people. Alexander Henry the Younger re-
ported in 1811 that the Stoney, “although the most arrant horse thieves in the world, are at
the same time the most hospitable to strangers who arrive in their camps.”
DAVID THOMPSON
One of Canada's greatest explorers, David Thompson was a quiet, courageous, and
energetic man who drafted the first comprehensive and accurate map of western
Canada. He arrived in Canada from England as a 14-year-old apprentice clerk for
the Hudson's Bay Company. With an inquisitive nature and a talent for wilderness
navigation, he quickly acquired the skills of surveying and mapmaking. Natives
called him Koo-koo-sint, which translates as “the man who looks at stars.”
Between 1786 and 1812, Thompson led four major expeditions into western
Canada—the first for the Hudson's Bay Company and the last three for its rival,
the North West Company. The longest and most important one was the last, during
which he traveled up and crossed the Continental Divide at Howse Pass. After des-
cending into the Columbia River Valley, he established Kootenae House on Lake
Windermere, using this outpost for a five-year odyssey of exploration of the entire
Columbia River system. In the process, he discovered Athabasca Pass, which for
the next 40 years was the main route across the Canadian Rockies to the Pacific
Ocean.
In 1813, Thompson began work on a master map covering the entire territory
controlled by the North West Company. The map was four meters (13 feet) long and
two meters (seven feet) wide, detailing more than 3.9 million square kilometers (1.5
million square miles). On completion it was hung out of public view in the council
hall of a company fort in the east. Years later, after his death in 1857, the map was