Slave Lake); and made by one topographer, Thompson's map is a wonderful achievement. Though inevitably sparse and incorrect in detail, it is in the main, accurate. A reprint of that portion covering the mountains is published in the "Selkirk Range." British Columbia was then called New Caledonia, so named by Simon Fraser of the North-West Fur Company, the discoverer of Fraser River and one of the more notable of the earlier explorers.
On Thompson's map, the Selkirks are called Nelson's Mountains. When we remember that Trafalgar was fought in 1805 and that Nelson's thrilling signal was still ringing in the ears of Englishmen, the name is obvious. Subsequently, when the North-West Fur Company and the Hudson's Bay Company amalgamated, the name was changed to Selkirk Mountains i7i honour of the Earl of Selkirk, the great and famous member of the Hidson's Bay Company and founder of that Selkirk Colony on the Red River known as "Britain's one Utopia."
Historical—Early Explorers: David Thompson was the earliest pathfinder of the Selkirks and the first white man to make the inland voyage. 1,400 miles long from the Columbia River's source to its mouth. It was not in one year nor in one journey, but he explored the great waterway throughout its long, slow, devious length. He first reached the River (it is worthy to be spelt with a capital) in 1807 by way of Howse Pass, north of the railway. How he happened to go upstream instead of downstream when his objective point was the Pacific Ocean, Miss A. C. Laut tells in her "Conquest of the North-West." On June 22. 1807, having come to the River, he wrote in his journal: "May God in His mercy give me to see where the waters of this river flow to the Western Ocean." If he goes north, says Miss Laut, he knows from what the Indians tell him that he will come to an enormous detour. It is the Big Bend around the Selkirks north. But he is in a hurry, and it seems to him that he will reach the western ocean sooner "where American traders are heading." if he ascend the River. This is how Thompson came" to spend the winter of 1807-8 near the beautiful lake now called Windermere and to build a wooden fort there which he named "Kootenae House." It was not until his return in 1811 that he followed the River south to its source in Columbia Lake. He named both lakes "the Kootenae Lakes" and the Kootenay River he called McGillivray's River. Between these two visits. Thompson was indefatigable in extending the operations of his Company. His ascent in 1810 of the Athabasca River to its source and the descent of Wood River to its junction with the Columbia near the mouth of Canoe River which he named and where he established a post called "Boat Encampment." made known the route by the Athabasca Pass, which became the highway of early trade and the bridge of the dividing mountains between the vast plains east and the mountainous territories west.
Thompson never received recognition for services of exploration as great and more valuable than those of Sir Alexander MacKenzie who first navigated the MacKenzie River to the Arctic Ocean and first traversed the Rockies to Northern Pacific waters. He was, says Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, who is preparing the first biography of this pathfinder of the Selkirks, the greatest land geographer the British race
