Across North America in 2007 communities celebrated the David Thompson Bicentennial. Thompson arrived at the Churchill Factory trading post in 1784. He was 14 years old and fresh from the Grey Coat charity school in London. He spent his life in the fur trade, first with the Hudson’s Bay Company and then the rival Northwest Company. As an old man, he drew from his extensive field notes and from memory to write the Narrative of his 30 years of travels across the continent, mapping the routes between the St. Lawrence and the Pacific. David Thompson’s own words guide this retelling of his remarkable life story.