Review
"Thompson's descriptions of his experiences transports the reader to the era of Euro American contact with Indigenous people in the pre-colonial West like no other - his observations are amongst the clearest and most perceptive written during the period. This is an important work and deserving of a wide general audience." William L. Lang, Portland State University "Moreau integrates new materials and ensures that previously excluded material is now accessible. Scholars have been waiting some time for a complete Thompson edition, and this will be used and admired by historians and anthropologists throughout the United States and Canada." Frits Pannekoek, Athabasca University
Product Description
David Thompson's "Travels" is one of the finest early expressions of the Canadian experience. The work is not only the account of a remarkable life in the fur trade but an extended meditation on the land and Native people of western North America. The tale spans the years 1784 to 1807 and extends from the Great Lakes to the Rockies, from Athabasca to Missouri. A distinguished literary work, the "Travels" alternates between the expository prose of the scientist and the vivid language of the storyteller, animated throughout by a restless spirit of inquiry and sense of wonder. In the first volume of an ambitious three-volume project that will finally bring all of Thompson's writings together, editor William Moreau presents the "Travels" narrative as it existed in 1850, when the author was forced to abandon his work. Accompanying Moreau's transcription is an introductory essay and a textual introduction, extensive critical annotations, historical and modern maps, and a biographical appendix. The definitive collection of Thompson's works, "The Writings of David Thompson" will bring one of North American's most important early travelers and surveyors and his world to a whole new generation of readers.
