Columbia Journals

Thompson (1770-1857) was a fur trader, explorer, and cartographer who documented his efforts on behalf of the North West Company to find good trade routes across the Canadian Rockies. His journals also reveal his interest in mapping the Pacific watershed north of California and provide a detailed contemporary picture of the fur business during its greatest expansion. Includes an introduction, extensive notes and details of Thompson's manuscript maps, and the work of other cartographers of the period. c. Book News Inc.

David Thompson (1770-1857) is considered to have been the important surveyor of North America. Documenting Northwest Company's efforts to find trade routes across Canadian Rocky Mountains, this book reveals Thompson's interest in mapping the great river of the West sought by generations of explorers. It traces fur trade's westernmost expansion.

This book, first published in 2002, gathers some of America's top subject expert librarians to determine the most influential journals in their respective fields. 32 contributing authors reviewed journals from over twenty countries that have successfully shaped the evolution of their individual specialties worldwide. Their choices reflect the history of each discipline or profession, taking into account rivalries between universities, professional societies, for-profit and not-for-profit publishers, and even nation-states and international ideologies, in each journal's quest for reputational dominance. Each journal was judged using criteria such as longevity of publication, foresight in carving out its niche, ability to attract & sustain professional or academic affiliations, opinion leadership or agenda-setting power, and ongoing criticality to the study or practice of their field. The book presents wholly independent reviewers; none are in the employ of any publisher, but each is fully credentialed and well published, and many are award-winners. The authors guide college and professional school librarians on limited budgets via an exposition of their analytical and critical winnowing process in determining the classic resources for their faculty, students, and working professional clientele.

Since the time of Columbus, explorers dreamed of a water passage across the North American continent. President Thomas Jefferson shared this dream. He conceived the Corps of Discovery to travel up the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains and westward along possible river routes to the Pacific Ocean. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led this expedition of 1804?6. Along the way they filled hundreds of notebook pages with observations of the geography, Indian tribes, and natural history of the trans-Mississippi West. This volume covers the last leg of the party's route from the Cascades of the Columbia River to the Pacific Coast, and their stay at Fort Clatsop, near the river's mouth, until the spring of 1806. Travel and exploration were hampered by miserable weather. While in winter quarters, Lewis wrote detailed reports on natural phenomena and Indian life. These descriptions were accompanied by sketches of plants and animals as well as of Indians and their canoes, tools, and clothing.

David Thompson (1770-1857) is considered by many to have been the most important surveyor of North America. His achievements - mapping the Saskatchewan River, the great bend of the Missouri River, the Great Lakes and the headwaters of the Mississippi as well as the Columbia watershed - are the stuff of legend. Late in life Thompson wrote a retrospective memoir of his explorations, but the best way to understand his years in the fur trade is by reading his journals. With the publication of David Thompson's Columbia Journals Barbara Belyea makes this possible. Documenting the Northwest Company's efforts to find trade routes across the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Columbia Journals also reveals Thompson's personal interest in mapping the great river of the West sought by generations of explorers. His accounts provide a detailed picture of the fur business and remind us to what extent the territory he explored has been transformed by settlement, roads, and hydroelectric dams. Thompson's journals trace the fur trade's westernmost expansion while his hand-drawn maps preserve a contemporary image of the country he explored. The extensive notes that accompany the Columbia Journals provide a documentary context for Thompson's own account. Details of Thompson's manuscript maps are included, as is the work of other cartographers of the period. By placing Thompson's work in the context of the fur-trade and comparing his accomplishments with those of his contemporaries, Belyea shows what makes David Thompson truly remarkable and worthy of attention two hundred years after his surveys of the Columbia River.

The Lewis and Clark expedition is both one of the greatest geographical adventures undertaken by Americans and one of the best documented at the time. The University of Nebraska Press edition of the Journals of Lewis and Clark now reaches volume 10 of the projected 13 that will contain the complete record of the expedition. In order that the fullest record possible be kept of the expedition, captains Lewis and Clark required their sergeants to keep journals to compensate for possible loss of the captains' own accounts. The sergeants' accounts extend and corroborate the journals of Lewis and Clark and contribute to the full record of the expedition. Volume 10 contains the journal of expedition member Sergeant Patrick Gass. Gass was promoted to sergeant on the expedition to fill the place of the deceased Charles Floyd. His journal was subsequently published and proved quite popular: it went through six editions in six years. A skilled carpenter, Gass was almost certainly responsible for supervising the building of Forts Mandan and Clatsop; his records of those forts are particularly detailed and useful. Gass was to live until 1870, the last survivor of the expedition and the one who lived to see transcontinental communication fulfill the promise of the expedition. Gary E. Moulton is a professor of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and recipient of the J. Franklin Jameson Award of the American Historical Association for the editing of these journals.