In addition to successfully exploring and charting about four million square kilometers of North American David Thompson also had communication skills worth imitating.
Rosemary Neering, in her feature " The enigmatic explorer" in the Spring 2009 edition of British Columbia Magazine quotes author and medical officer John Bigsby on this who said:
"No living person possesses a tithe of his information respecting the Hudson's Bay countries....he has a very powerful mind and singular faculty of picture-making. He can create a wilderness and people it with warring savages, or climb the Ricky Mountains with you in a snow storm, so clearly and palpably that only shut your eyes and you hear the crack of the rifle, or feel the snow flakes melting on your cheeks as he talks."
To do this he had to create these images in his own mind first and then find the right words and images to recreate them for his readers and listeners making use of all of the senses.
With practice we can do the same.
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