David Thompson: The Right Stuff

David Thompson Bicentennials Newsletter, Summer 2009, p. 5

http://www.davidthompson200.ca/eng/downloads/DT200_Summer_2009_Newsletter.pdf

Thompson and the Space Station

David Thompson’s accuracy in his surveys were due to his skills at celestial navigation, earning the explorer the Salish name Koo Koo Sint that means stargazer. How appropriate that he is being honoured by today’s space travellers. Canadian Astronaut, Dr. Robert Thirsk, has started a 6 months long space station expedition, from late May 2009. On September 12, if all goes well, Bob will broadcast a downlink from the International Space Station to the Panida Theater in Sandpoint, Idaho, as part of a commemoration of Thompson's arrival in the Pend Oreille country in September of 1809. For more information www.space.gc.ca or contact Larry Meriam (larry@northwoodscanoe.com).

This is not the first time that David Thompson has gone into space. Jack Nisbet’s book Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across Western North America accompanied a previous astronaut. As part of a planned broadcast to children in the fall of 2009, maps developed by cartographer Andy Korsos that highlight the travels of David Thompson and S. Leanne Playter's research of Charlotte Small were brought into space by the Space Shuttle Discovery. The crew of STS-119 will deliver the maps to the International Space Station. It is at the space station that the broadcast will take place and the maps will be used.