Fur trader, surveyor and explorer David Thompson paddled, rode and walked from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean, travelled the full length of the Columbia River, and after 28 years in the west wound up in Montreal, all the while making maps that were unsurpassed for a hundred years. His journals were some of the earliest descriptions of what is now British Columbia and parts of Montana, Idaho and Washington state. Now, 200 years after Thompson did his great work, film maker George Sibley paints a vivid picture of a world on the brink of change and a man who helped change it, filmed on the actual locations where it all took place.

Title from title screen.

Opening -- Saukamappee -- Apprentice -- Nor'Wester -- Mapping survey -- Charlotte -- Into the Rockies -- Great River -- Innovator -- Ocean at last -- The great map -- Hard lines -- The "narrative" -- Legacy -- End -- Credits. Bonus materials: David Thompson and the Kootenai Portage -- Thompson the surveyor -- The language of the trade and a Cree story -- Picturing David Thompson: commentary by film maker George Sibley.