Abstract
The American Society of Civil Engineers and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering have just jointly designated “David Thompson’s Surveying and Map** of the Northwest of North America” as an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. David Thompson (1770–1857)—surveyor, map-maker, explorer, and fur trader for both the Hudson’s Bay and North West Companies—is considered “the greatest land geographer that the world has produced” (Tyrrell in David Thompson’s narrative of his explorations in Western America. The Champlain Society, Toronto, 1916, [13]), despite his serious visual impairment. Often accompanied by his Métis wife, Charlotte Small, he surveyed and mapped a vast region stretching from 45°N to 60°N latitude and from the western shores of Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean between 1790 and 1812. His 1814 Great Map, compiled from his surveys and those of Alexander Mackenzie, Simon Fraser, George Vancouver and his teacher Philip Turnor, laid the groundwork for development of the Northwest of North America. This paper briefly describes Thompson’s life and remarkable achievements.
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References
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Acknowledgements
The document nominating David Thompson’s Surveying and Map** of North America as an ASCE/CSCE Civil Engineering Historic Landmark was prepared by the three authors of this paper. Input and review comments from Kevin Baskin, Ken Johnson, Alistair Mackenzie, Calvin Sexsmith, Peter Wright, all CSCE National History Committee, are gratefully acknowledged. The support of the ASCE Minnesota and Montana Sections, co-sponsors with CSCE of the ASCE International Civil Engineering Historic Landmark application, is also greatly acknowledged. We are grateful to Anthony Allen, creator of the cwjefferys.ca Website, for providing high-resolution images of his grandfather’s drawings, used for Figs. 3 and 5.
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© 2024 Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
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Gilbert, D.R., Michael Bartlett, F., Bedford, C.G. (2024). David Thompson’s Surveying and Map** of the Northwest of North America. In: Gupta, R., et al. Proceedings of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering Annual Conference 2022. CSCE 2022. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 367. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35471-7_36
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35471-7_36
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