By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird in Light Magazine, July 2017
David Thompson represents the best of the early Canadian explorers. A strong Christian, he remained faithful to his wife and never sold alcohol to First Nations people. Thompson had seen so many First Nations people harmed by the liquor trade that he had acquired a strong aversion to such profiteering. When once forced to carry alcohol on his donkeys, he tied the ropes so loose that the barrels were smashed on the mountain rocks.
Born April 30, 1770 in Westminster, Middlesex England to Welsh parents, Thompson's father died when he was only two years old. His mother moved the family to London, changing their Welsh name ApThomas to the more easily spoken Thompson. When Thompson moved to Canada, he never again saw either his family or London. In his journal, he wrote of a "long and sad farewell to my noble, my sacred country, an exile for ever."
