David Thompson. Tom Shardlow

      The old man takes only small tentative steps toward the general store. He is trying to keep his balance on the hard-trodden snow that covers the street. Hunger more than old age has left him weak, and he is faint though he has gone only a short distance. He hunches his shoulders against the cold and wraps his moth-eaten greatcoat closer round him. He stops to watch as a horse and sleigh pull by and uses their passing as an excuse to rest. But the jingle of bells and the cheerful tittering of sled runners in the snow seem only to mock him.

      Montreal is in the lock of a winter more bitter than most. The river is frozen and there will be no new supplies until shipping opens after the thaw in April. The city is overcrowded this year. Paupers, feet and legs bound with rags, shuffle half-heartedly along narrow roads and look for warmth. Unlike him, these are recent immigrants. Thousands arrived from Britain in summer before the ice-up. Many are fleeing the poverty and suffering of Ireland. They are poor and ill prepared for the Canadian winter and have taken up shelter where they can. Some are packed into dingy lodging houses, but most can afford only crude accommodation found in derelict hulks frozen in the river, or in empty warehouses. These are the lucky ones. Typhus and cholera have claimed the weak and malnourished. Some died while still on the defiled ships that brought them. More, having set foot in the new land, will die on the stone streets waiting for help that never comes. The old man is fortunate to have a small apartment above a shop in one of the dark limestone buildings.

      When he finally arrives at the general store, he straightens himself, then reaches beneath his frost-crusted coat. He wants to be sure his bundle is still securely tucked under his arm. Behind the counter, the shopkeeper sits reading his ledger. He pretends not to notice the old man’s entry and hopes the pauper will not ask for more credit. Glowing coals in a cast-iron stove warm the air and the room is laden with the smell of tobacco leaves, lamp oil, canvas, and tar. Quarters of smoked meat are suspended on hooks over rows of barrels and crates of dried and salted food. Behind the barrels are shelves stacked to the ceiling with blankets and clothing. There are no customers because few can afford the elevated prices the shortages have produced. The tattered figure approaches the counter.

      “Mr. Thompson, how may I be of service?” says the shopkeeper, still looking at his ledger.

      The old man does not reply but places the cloth-wrapped bundle on the counter and fumbles with its knotted ends. He exposes a brass apparatus inscribed “David Thompson, astronomer & surveyor.” It is the last of his surveying instruments. He has already been forced to sell his compass, sextant, and other equipment.

      “How much for this on pledge?” the old man asks.

      “Perhaps if you could tell me exactly what this is,” says the shopkeeper, “I may be able to help you.”

      “It’s a theodolite, a very valuable survey instrument.”

      “Well, Mr. Thompson, I don’t see there would be a real need for survey instruments here. Everyone in Lower Canada knows where Montreal is,” says the shopkeeper, wishing others were in the store to appreciate the cleverness of his reply.

      The old man stiffens. When he’d arrived in Rupert’s Land in 1784, little other than the location of Montreal had been known about the country’s geography. Using his survey instruments, he had plotted and mapped nearly four million square kilometres of North America, west of what the shopkeeper was now calling Lower Canada. He had explored the headwaters of the Mississippi. He had been first to follow and chart the Columbia River from its source to the Pacific Ocean. His sextant and compass had helped him discover and survey the Athabasca Pass through the Rocky Mountains and had been with him when he forged wilderness trails and established trading posts for the North West Company across the continent. But he doesn’t protest. The shopkeeper is right, after all. His survey tools have little value here.