“Shadows of David Thompson” film to screen

PABLO — KSKC Public TV is sponsoring free screenings of George Sibley’s new film at the Johnny Arlee-Victor Charlo Theatre on March 26 at 5 and 7 pm on the Salish Kootenai College Campus in Pablo. Sibley will be on hand to introduce the film and answer questions.

David Thompson was one of the undeservedly forgotten figures of North American history. First as a western fur trader and later helping mark the boundary between the US and Canada, Thompson paddled, rode and walked from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean, crossed and re-crossed the Rocky Mountains, and wound up in Montreal, making maps that were unsurpassed for a hundred years. Much of his most important work was done in the Columbia River country, locating trails and setting up trading houses for the North West Company, a fur-trading business based in Montreal. From 1807 to 1812, Thompson opened the first trading posts in what are now British Columbia, Montana, Idaho and Washington State. In the process he surveyed and mapped, among other things, the sources of the Columbia River. The bicentennial of those events is now being celebrated by a loosely affiliated group of historical societies, museums and Thompson fans organized as the David Thompson Bicentennials in Canada and the United States. As part of the Bicentennials, filmmaker George Sibley (Gale Force Films) produced an hour-long general-interest documentary about Thompson’s life and work, aimed at broadcast on television stations in both countries and showings at many historical parks and museums in the areas where Thompson traveled. The film features original music and interviews with modern-day Thompson historians and archivists across Canada and the U.S., and follows Thompson’s travels from Hudson Bay to the inland northwest, then winding up in Montreal. Period scenes recreating key events in the story have been staged with the cooperation of state and regional historical societies and local fur-trade re-enactors in Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Alberta. Over the next few years, events are being planned throughout the region to draw attention to Thompson and his work, and the film is expected be an important part of educational outreach programs.

George Sibley has been a filmmaker for 40 years, mostly making educational films and documentaries. In 2001 he started Gale Force Films to help increase the use of video programs by environmental and historic preservation groups. Recent clients have included the Sierra Club, Scenic Virginia, the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Northern Neck Land Conservancy, Floridians for Environmental Accountability and Reform (FEAR), The County of Volusia (Florida), Floridians for a Sustainable Population, the Alberta Wilderness Society, and the Southeast Volusia Historical Society. His films have been widely used in “anti-sprawl” land use campaigns all over Florida and in several other states and provinces, and three of his Florida conservation films, “Six Fairy Tales About Growth in Florida”, “Changing Lanes” and “Phantom Future” were shown nationally on the DISH network satellite channel “Free Speech TV” in May and June of 2005. In June of 2006 his film “Lewis and Clark and US” was broadcast on KSKC TV and Montana Public Television. The following year George continued his history-oriented work by making “Smyrnea Lost and Found”; a lost colony story about the origins of what became the Florida town of New Smyrna Beach. That film is in residence at the local historical society museum and involved extensive overseas filming as well as work with historic re-enactors in Florida and Georgia.

“Shadows of David Thompson” is being released on DVD and will be shown this summer at museums and historic sites along Thompson’s old environs. KSKC Public TV is sponsoring the screening at Salish Kootenai College. The film includes interview segments with locals Vernon Finley, Lawrence Kenmille and Pat Chief Stick as well as cameo appearances by Kim Koenig and Frank Tyro.