David Thompson (explorer)

David Thompson (April 30, 1770 – February 10, 1857) was a British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer". Over his career he mapped over 3.9 million square kilometers of North America and for this has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."

Famous quotes containing the words david and/or thompson:

    Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years—
    My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap,
    My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
    Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
    —Francis Thompson (1859–1907)