July 19, 2009
Lyle Henrickson is waving from a ND historic site which is about 15 miles from his house. Earlier I had sent an e-mail to Lyle and Liz and they told us they didn’t know about this monument so near their home. Without Lyle and Liz, I doubt if we would ever have found this on our own. We thought maybe this place gets a visitor every couple of years.
The land and monument for this site were donated by the Great Northern Railroad (which is now Burlington Northern Santa Fe) to honor David Thompson, (1770- 1857) “greatest land geographer who ever lived.” He mapped over 3.9 million km of North America, including North Dakota. Lewis and Clark used his maps on their 1804-1806 expedition up the Missouri River.
David Thompson came through here in 1797 while on a scientific and trading expedition for the Northwest Company, a Hudson’s Bay Company competitor. He made the first reliable map of this area.
David Thompson was also a fur trader, surveyor and astronomer. The native people here called him “Koo-Koo-Sint” which means “stargazer.”
No comments:
Post a Comment