David Thompson (explorer)
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 02/02/2019

David Thompson (explorer), by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7994 / CC BY SA 3.0

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David Thompson (explorer)

David Thompson (30 April 1770 – 10 February 1857) was a British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer." Over Thompson's career, he travelled some across North America, mapping of North America along the way. For this historic feat, Thompson has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."

David Thompson was born in Westminster, Middlesex, to recent Welsh migrants David and Ann Thompson. When Thompson was two, his father died. Due to the financial hardship with his mother without resources, Thompson and his older brother were placed in the Grey Coat Hospital, a school for the disadvantaged of Westminster. Thompson graduated to the Grey Coat mathematical school, where he was introduced to basic navigation skills. He later built on these to make his career. In 1784, at the age of 14, he entered a seven-year apprenticeship with the Hudson's Bay Company. He set sail on 28 May of that year, and left England for North America.

Thompson arrived in Churchill (now in Manitoba) and was put to work as a secretary, copying the personal papers of the governor of Fort Churchill, Samuel Hearne. The next year he was transferred to nearby York Factory, and over the next few years spent time as a secretary at Cumberland House, Saskatchewan, and South Branch House before arriving at Manchester House in 1787. During those years he learned to keep accounts and other records, calculate values of furs (It was noted that he also had several expensive beaver pelts at that time even when a secretary's job would not pay t...