David Thompson Brigade crosses Alberta

The David Thompson Brigade, a recreation of the explorer and map-maker’s journey 200 years ago from the Rocky Mountains to Thunder Bay, was a floating feast says, Colleen Darbyshire.

“Every community we stopped in put on a really big show; our cook had nothing to do,”  the server at Andy’s Bistro recalled on her return from paddling across Alberta with more than 100 paddlers in 15 canoes. 

The adventure got off to a chilly start. More than a foot of snow greeted the modern-day voyageurs in Rocky Mountain House and the early going was through a river lined with bergs of ice.

“But it was an incredible experience,” says Darbyshire. “I wish I had stayed two weeks instead of one.”

Darbyshire paddled 576 km across Alberta, averaging 12 km an hour – faster when the wind filled jury-rigged sails and swept the heavy canoes  along the North Saskatchewan River.

“Getting up at five and being on the river by 6:30 was the toughest part of the trip,” she says. “The tent would rattle, we put on layers, and a smile for the day and away we went.”

The voyage was the brainchild of several Edmontonians. One of the trio, Ted Bentley, was the brigade chief. 

Thompson’s role in the development of Western Canada is largely unheralded, Bentley said.

“He drew the first accurate maps from one side of the country to the other. He set up the 49th parallel. The maps he made were still being used into the 1920s.”

Thompson was also a devoted and prolific family man, said Bentley. After marrying Catherine Small, a native woman from Saskatchewan, the couple had 13 children. Catherine also travelled with him, and in 1808 set out with him from Rocky Mountain House, even though she was pregnant.

Thompson had important news for his employers and had to get to Montreal to tell them he had mapped Howse Pass, a passage through the Rockies near Jasper that would become a major route for the cross-Canada fur trade. 

The modern-day voyageurs hope to make it to Fort William in time for a July 12 celebration.