Peter Fidler Facts

Peter Fidler Facts

David Thompson was designated to go with Hudson's Bay chief surveyor Philip Turnor's expedition in 1790 to determine the exact location of and the best route to Lake Athabasca. A serious leg injury kept David Thompson behind. His place was taken by rookie surveyor Peter Fidler, who later succeeded Turnor as Inland Surveyor.
It was on this, his first expedition into Northern Alberta that Peter Fidler began to learn the Chipewyan language.
In 1792, when William Tomlison came up the North Saskatchewan River to establish Buckingham House beside the North West Company's Fort George, Peter Fidler was the accompanying surveyor.
In the late winter of 1992, Peter Fidler and few companions headed south on a surveying expedition that took him all the way down to Waterton National Park where he was the first European to make a recorded observation of Chief Mountain in early January of 1793.
Surveying information from that trip was used by Aaron Arrowsmith, a British map maker, in his first map of North America in 1795.
In Arrowsmith's 1802 revision of the map of North America, he delineated the length of the Missouri River. The information concerning the Missouri headwaters, came from Peter Fidler's drawing of a map by the Blackfoot Indian Ac Ko Mo Ki.
Peter Fidler loved clothes and often commented in his journals when he had new 'togs' made.
On October 19, 1801, the tailor at Chesterfield House made 'a fine blue cloth coat' for Fidler, and on October 26, he made Fidler a 'pair of yellow trousers'.
On December 24, Fidler had the tailor make him a waistcoat.
January 27, 1802, Fidler had 'the Taylor making me a red Coat'.
On February 15, 1802 the tailor made yet another waistcoat for him.
On July 8, 1813, Fidler's cassette contained a total of 24 waistcoats.