Living history

Matt Roy has a passion for history.

The 30-year-old Lakehead Public Schools teacher said he loves the outdoors and always wants to learn more about history. When he heard the 2011 David Thompson Columia Brigade, he and a group of friends wanted to attempt the journey for themselves.

"We’re super interesting in history, it’s a passion of ours, especially living history," Roy said in a full voyageur outfit. "Canadian history has parts that are incredibly interesting and most people have never heard of."

In 1811, David Thompson and his crew of voyageurs paddled 1,200 miles from Invermere, British Columbia to Astoria, Wash.

Thompson, a former Hudson Bay employee, defected to the rival fur trading North West Company around 1796. Thompson travelled by a variety of ways from canoe to snowshoe, dog sled and even on foot to map 3.9 million square kilometres of wilderness.

Roy said he and his friends made the plan a year ago to journey. They will meet with more than 100 other teams at Invermere, B.C. and start their six-week journey on June 3. The group will travel the river routes that Thompson had used in canoes and eat historic foods such as pemmican.

They won’t be able to follow the route exactly because the rivers have changed since Thompson last used them, he said.

Roy said the Thompson expedition shows how much Canada has a shared heritage.

"You got French Canadians, Europeans, First Nations people all coming together and striving for a pretty big goal," he said. "From a historical perspective, it is one of the most interesting and amazing thing we can think of."

Roy’s group all worked at Fort William Historical Park at one time and they plan to tell the tale of Thompson while travelling in his footsteps, he said.

Although, the group plans try to stay as authentic as possible, Roy said compared to the actual Thompson expedition, they are going to have a much easier trip than he did.

"David Thompson was dealing with starvation on a daily basis," he said. "He would set out with a group of men and if you read his journals, they are constantly without food and having no idea where their food is going to come from.

"They had to butcher their dogs a couple time to eat, one man ingested a porcupine quill because of the dog meat and had it come out from the inside of his stomach. He told stories of rancid horse meat and having his men vomiting from it. It’s insane."

The biggest disadvantage for the group is that they aren’t as in good of shape as the voyageurs who paddled for Thompson, Roy added

For more information and to follow the group as they begin their travels go to www.paddletopacific.com