David Thompson may not have been the first to break through the Athabasca Pass, but he was instrumental in opening it up as a route to the mighty Columbia River and the Pacific Coast. This link firmly cemented British Columbia’s future as a Canadian province and sent fur traders and travellers streaming over the pass.

Thompson is also credited with being the first to open up the Jasper region, and left one of his men, William Henry, behind to become the first European to spend a winter here. 

Thompson was tasked by the North West Company in 1806 with establishing a trade route in the Kootenays in the south eastern corner of B.C. During that time, he searched for a route across the mountains to the Pacific. When trading with the Kootenay aboriginals, Thompson made a crucial mistake that would later force him to discover the Athabasca Pass – he traded the aboriginal people weapons.

 In 1810, Thompson returned east to Lake Superior for the annual meeting of the North West Company Committee where he was instructed to explore the Columbia River and extend trading opportunities. Thompson was eager to map the entire Columbia to its end. 

He returned to the Upper Saskatchewan past Rocky Mountain House in early September of that year and prepared to cross the Howse pass with men and horses. He discovered that the Peigans were occupying the region and threatened violence should he pass, due to his arming of the Kootenay. 

Outnumbered and defeated, Thompson turned back and was forced to look for another route. He reassembled his team at Boggy Hall, near the mouth of the Brazeau River, in the present-day Drayton Valley. He turned northwest towards the Athabasca Valley from there. 

He arrived in the Athabasca Valley four weeks later, possibly near Obed Creek, and established a campsite for the next three weeks. There they made snowshoes, sleds and hunted, turning buffalo meat into pemmican for long-term storage and the journey ahead. With him was a group of men that would later attempt the pass, and some of their wives. The exact campsite is unknown, but it is believed to be somewhere near present-day Jasper. 

In his journals, Thompson recorded the temperature as approximately -36 Celsius, and complained that the women were awkward. It is believed their “awkwardness” could have been contributed to the extreme cold they were working in. 

When the group left for the pass on Dec. 30, William Henry was left behind to watch over the supplies and trade goods. Thompson took with him 13 men including guide Thomas the Iroquois, three to four horses and dogs to pull eight sleds. Along the way they stopped to kill a mountain sheep and prepare the meat. They restarted the journey on Jan. 5 and arrived in the Prairie de la Vache area, or present-day Jasper, the next day. There they released the horses and turned them on the remaining grasslands. The horses survived the winter. 

From there, they struggled up the Whirlpool River (Meeting of the Waters). The temperature rose to a balmy -6 C and wet snow was dumped on the group. At this point in the journey, a bizarre fear of a rogue mammoth in the area began to terrify the group. They spotted a large grizzly bear track and chalked it up to the mammoth.

On Jan. 10, the group approached the pass on the sixth day of their journey. They stayed the night near the middle of the pass, where Thompson left the group for a few hours to survey the area and determine their route down the west side of the pass. When he returned he found the men probing the snow with a 20-foot long pole, unable to reach the bottom. 

Thompson determined the best route was to head down the Pacific and Jeffrey Creeks to the Wood River that eventually led into the Columbia. It took a week to reach the Columbia in the deep snow. 

Once they reached the “Big Bend” of the Columbia River, they set up camp at what became known as Boat Encampment. The area was later dammed and became flooded and is the present-day location of Kinbasket Lake. 

Thompson and his group remained at Boat Encampment for the rest of the winter. The site became a staging area for traders returning from, and embarking on the Athabasca Pass. There, fur traders would trade horses for canoes to get to the Pacific, or vice versa. 

At this time, the fear of the mammoth got to be too much for the group, and Thompson feared he would be deserted. They not only feared the non-existent mammoth, but the bottomless snow and fatigue contributed to their hysteria. Thompson allowed them to leave and go back over the pass to eventually head to the fort at Rocky Mountain House. 

He was left with three men out of 13; Rene Vallade, Pierre Pareil and Joseph Coté. Thompson sent the three men back over the pass to get supplies from Henry on the other side. They returned on Feb. 17 with two sleds. By this point, since the journey began, Thompson’s team had traversed the pass four times in two months. 

On the east side of the pass, Thompson commented in his journal on the size of the birch trees that stretched to 15-feet across. Unfortunately the bark was unable to be used for the canoes he needed to continue along the Columbia River. Instead Thompson used cedar planks to build canoes, and stitched them together with spruce roots.

Thompson left on April 18, 1811, south up the Columbia. He arrived on the coast on July 15, which is heralded as an incredible achievement. As he arrived, Thompson was shocked to meet former North West company employee, Duncan McDougall, who was now working for the American Fur Company. 

Thompson waited for his men to return with supplies while promoting the North West Company fur trade with the tribes in interior Washington and Idaho. He then returned to Boat Encampment, completing his survey of the Columbia River. 

In October, Thompson attempted the Athabasca Pass again with horses, but struggled in the snow that reached their bellies. The horses were sent back over the pass to winter on the eastern side and the goods Thompson carried were delivered. 

Thompson used the pass for the last time in May 1812. He began the journey on May 8, with three hunters. He left the rest of his men on the other side to cross when the snow melted. It was his last time crossing the Rocky Mountains. 

At 42 years old, Thompson headed east and picked up his family in Rainy Lake, Ont., and continued on to Terrebonne, Que. He retired as a wealthy partner of the North West Company, but later lent out money to the less fortunate that was never returned. He worked on his great map of over four million square miles of Canada that were previously unmapped, and continued his journals. 

He died in February of 1857, nearly blind. His wife Charlotte passed away three months later. They left behind 13 children. 

Thompson’s travels secured Canada’s motto of From Sea to Sea by connecting B.C. with the rest of the country. He was not the first over; his guide Thomas the Iroquois had travelled it before joining Thompson’s group in 1811.

Thompson described the pass as a u-shaped valley with a tree line 100 metres above the valley bottom. The pass began at the Whirlpool River, which is a major tributary to the Athabasca River. It lies 50 kilometres southwest of the forks. The pass is 1,748 metres high, 600 kilometres higher than the Yellowhead Pass. 

References: Murphy, Udell, Stevenson, Peterson. 2007. “Early Explorers and the Athabasca Pass.” in A Hard Road to Travel. p. 49 to 59.