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Brooke Martens wants your hands on her paddles (5 photos)

Brooke Martens is looking for a few good paddle-wielders.
DavidThompsonB-C

Brooke Martens is looking for a few good paddle-wielders.

Martens is brigade chief for the David Thompson Brigade, currently paddling one of the routes that Canadian explorer David Thompson and his beloved Metis wife Charlotte Smith would have taken during their 27-year career on Canadian rivers and lakes in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

"There will be some portaging," said Martens, shown in the blue shirt during a welcoming event yesterday at Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site.

Also expected are plenty of gorgeous sights to see and fun adventuring to be had.

Maybe a few parties and campfires.

Oh, and period garb.

And camping out along the way.

Seen here with Martens are brigade members Laura Pehrson and Garry Spotowski of Edmonton, Gary De Kock of Grand Rapids, Michigan and Norm Howrigan of Vancouver Island.

The group putBoona, a yellow 29-foot Clipper Langley canoe, in the water at Fort William in Thunder Bay on July 10.

Brigade members paddled around the northern shore, taking it slowly and enjoying the breathtaking scenery, said Martens.

She told the story of how English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor and map-maker David Thompson mapped over 3.9 million square kilometers of North America and has been described by some as the greatest land geographer who ever lived.

Martens also said that Thompson and his wife, Charlotte Smith were married 58 years, the longest Canadian pre-Confederation marriage known.

The couple had 13 children, five born before Thompson left the fur trade.

Smith and the first five children often travelled with Thompson as he surveyed almost one-sixth of continental United States and Canada.

She was the daughter of a Cree mother and Scottish fur-trader father and together she and Thompson explored much fresh territory for him to survey.

Thompson began his career as a land geographer in 1784 at the age of fourteen, when he entered a seven-year apprenticeship with the Hudson's Bay Company.

Over a span of 27 years, first with the Hudson's Bay Company then with the North West Company, he accomplished many remarkable tasks including the discovery and mapping of a canoe route through the Rocky Mountains.

In 1812, Thompson retired from the North West Company and in 1814 he completed a map of the area from the Pacific to Lake Superior that was so complete and accurate that it became the basis for many of the maps issued by the Canadian government for more than 100 years.

"2010 marks the 200th anniversary of the height of David Thompson's work and explorations – a fitting occasion to honour North America's greatest geographer," says the brigade website.

The plan is for the David Thompson Brigade to travel from the locks to the Ermatinger Clergue National Historic Site this morning.

The brigade will spend Wednesday in the Sault at the Ermatinger Clergue National Historic Site where everyone is invited to join them for with presentations happening until 2:30 p.m. today.

Then, on Thursday morning, the brigade will set out for Thessalon.

As the trip progresses, the paddlers will travel through the North Channel, up the French River, across Lake Nipissing, down the Mattawa River, and finally on the Ottawa River until it empties out into the St. Lawrence Seaway in Montreal.

Their arrival in Montreal is planned for August 20.

Martens said that anyone wishing to join the brigade anywhere along the route should contact her at [email protected]


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