Paul Hatfield has relived a little history.
Departing Thursday (Aug. 18), the Canmore resident led a crew of 10 on a four-day voyageur canoe journey down the Athabasca River.
The excursion began in Jasper National Park at Maligne River and finished at Emerson Bridge, a distance of approximately 150 kilometres. The purpose of the trip was to honour David Thompson, the first European explorer to chart the region.
“I got involved in this because I’m a student of David Thompson’s history,” said Hatfield, Tuesday (Aug. 23). “It was 200 years ago David Thompson went through the Jasper area and was the first non-Aboriginal person to discover the Jasper area.”
The journey was organized by the Voyageur Brigade Society, involved 15 canoes and approximately 200 people.
“I had heard there was going to be a celebration of voyageur canoes, so then I started working on getting a team together and a boat to go and participate,” said Hatfield.
Of the 10 members on his team, one is from the MD of Bighorn, one from Creston and the remainder from Canmore.
“Most of the team members are canoe enthusiasts,” said Hatfield. “Most, at one point or another, I’ve canoed with, and are also interested in the history of David Thompson.”
Thompson was born in London in 1770. At the age of 14, he entered into an apprenticeship with the Hudson’s Bay Company and departed that year for Canada, never to return home. In 1797, he moved on to the North West Company and began his explorations, which included being the first European to navigate the full length of the Columbia River.
“He was considered by many the world’s greatest cartographer,” said Hatfield. “His maps were accurate beyond the standard of the day, and he promoted trade throughout our country, at which time animal skins were the major economic engine, so our traders were our first developers of our whole economy.”
To make the voyage more authentic, a voyageur canoe was required, he said.
“We were originally going to use a modern, square stern plastic canoe, but the organizing committee asked us not to do that, because it wasn’t historic,” he said. “Randy Clement from Exshaw had a canoe that was given to him by the late Jim Kievit, and he loaned us that canoe to do this trip and we’re very grateful to Randy, because otherwise we weren’t able to find a historic-type canoe.”
The journey was mostly smooth, though it wasn’t without some hazards, said Hatfield.
“It’s pretty much smooth the whole way,” he said. “There are some small rapids and hazards, but the biggest hazards were Jasper Lake and Brule Lake, both of which are extremely shallow and silted-in – you need to be aware of where you are in these shallow lakes.”
Retracing the steps of the explorer and seeing the places he visited were Hatfield’s highlights for the trip.
“We stopped at Jasper House, which is where David Thompson originally built a trading post, at the east end of Jasper National Park,” he said. “We stopped at Brule, which is where he spent three weeks in the fall of 1810 to prepare for his journey to the Columbia River.
“We stopped in Hinton, and Thompson spent time there also, and near the end we stopped at Obed Creek, where he discovered the Athabasca River and started upstream. So those are very memorable parts of the journey.”
There was also a solemn moment to the voyage.
“We also scattered the ashes of our former town councillor from Canmore, André Gareau,” he said. “We scattered them in the river at Hinton.”
After the journey was over, Hatfield’s greatest impression was a sense of awe at what Thompson was able to do.
“What struck us all the most was how much work it was for voyageurs to canoe up a river and do all this exploring with no resources,” he said. “To canoe from Jasper is a lot of work, but David Thompson and his colleagues did it, and he went across Canada 20 times.”
