February 10

Born in England in 1770, David Thompson joined the Hudson’s Bay Company at 14 and spent decades exploring uncharted lands. He meticulously surveyed over three million square kilometers, including the Columbia River watershed and the Canadian Rockies. Thompson’s accurate maps and journals were critical to the development of the fur trade and Western expansion. His work bridged Indigenous knowledge and European surveying techniques, setting new standards in cartography. He retired in Montreal in 1850 and died in 1857, remembered as one of history’s greatest cartographic pioneers.