- Peter Pond
Peter Pond (1739 or 1740 – 1807) was born in Milford,
Connecticut . He was a soldier with a Connecticut regiment, afur trade r, founding member of theNorth West Company , an explorer and cartographer.Biography
Pond began his fur trading career with his father out of Detroit,
Michigan . He traded throughoutMinnesota andWisconsin . Through his business he became acquainted withAlexander Henry ,Simon McTavish and the brothers Thomas, Benjamin andJoseph Frobisher . They formed the North West Company which developed a fierce rivalry with theHudson's Bay Company . In search of new fur resources he explored west of the Great Lakes. In 1776-1778 he wintered at a fur post he created at the junction of theSturgeon River andNorth Saskatchewan River near present dayPrince Albert, Saskatchewan . The site is today a National Historic Site.In 1783 Pond's explorations led him to the
Athabasca , a region stretching from Lac Île-à-la-Crosse to the Peace River. There he explored waterways aroundLake Athabasca and determined the approximate locations ofGreat Slave Lake andGreat Bear Lake fromFirst Nation s peoples of the area. From his notes and diaries Peter Pond drew a map showing rivers and lakes of the Athabasca region, including what was known of the whole area from Hudson Bay to theRocky Mountain s and interpolating his information to theArctic Ocean orNorthwest Passage .In 1785, one copy of Pond's map, accompanied by a detailed report, was submitted to the
United States Congress and a second to theLieutenant-Governor of Quebec , Henry Hamilton. Pond needed financial support to carry his explorations to the limits of North America's northwest, but the British government was not forthcoming. A partner in the North West Company, founded in 1784, he was in charge of the company business in the Athabasca and Peace River areas. An ambitious man with a reputation for a violent temper he was implicated in twomurder s: Although acquitted on the murder charges, the company replaced him with Alexander Mackenzie. In the process of taking over the management of the business Mackenzie learned a great deal from Peter Pond about the Athabasca and Peace River region. Pond left the North West Company in 1788.Mackenzie was intrigued by Pond's belief that the tributaries of that area, which could be seen gathering into a great river flowing northwestward, flowed to the
Northwest Passage . Mackenzie took the initiative to follow up on Pond's belief and followed this great river to its mouth; the watercourse, now called theMackenzie River , did in fact flow to the Northwest Passage section of theArctic Ocean . Peter Pond had contributed to the mapping of Canada by drawing the general outline of theriver basin that Mackenzie recorded in 1789. The maps that Peter Pond subsequently drew, based on his explorations and on the information provided to him byFirst Nations peoples, ultimately gained international recognition for Pond at the end of the 18th century.In 1790, Pond sold his shares in the North West Company to
William McGillivray . He returned to Milford, Connecticut, where he died in 1807.External links
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=2615 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"] DEFAULTSORT:Pond, Peter
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