David Thompson’s Narrative 1784-1812.

 Preview 

The second edition of 1962 has a new Introduction, followed by Tyrrell’s original “David Thompson’s Itinerary in North-Western Americana, 1785-1812.” From the outset of this new Introduction, Glover is critical of the critics of the HBC, for example Hearne, Thompson, and Umfreville, as well as of the hagiographers of those traders and authors, e.g. even Tryrell could sink to writing that Thompson bore continuously “the white flower of the blameless life”, and lesser men wrote still worse stuff” (p. xii). Grover is a stylish and provocative writer, and few escape his ascerbic pen.

David Thompson’s Narrative of His Explorations in Western America 1784-1812.

 Preview 

David Thompson (1770-1857), after early education at a London charity school where he studied mathematics and navigation, signed on as an apprentice with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1784, and worked as surveyor for both the HBC and the North West Company.