Thompson Country, also referred to as The Thompson and sometimes as the Thompson Valley and historically known as the Couteau Country or Couteau District, is a historic geographic region of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, more or less defined by the basin of the

Thompson River The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches, the South Thompson River and the North Thompson River. The river ...

. This is a tributary of the

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal ...

; the major city in the area is

Kamloops Kamloops ( ) is a city in south-central British Columbia, Canada, at the confluence of the North Thompson River, North and South Thompson Rivers, which join to become the Thompson River in Kamloops, and east of Kamloops Lake. The city is the ad ...

Origin and usage

The term originated among Scots and English in the days of the

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

, who described Thompson Country as lying between

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

to the north and the

Columbia District The Columbia District was a fur-trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, in both the United States and British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the temporarily jointly occupi ...

Oregon Country Oregon Country was a large region of the Pacific Northwest of North America that was subject to a long Oregon boundary dispute, dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been demarcat ...

to the south.''The Thompson Country'', Mark Sweeten Wade
/ref> Prior to their dominance, French traders referred to this as ''Couteau nifeCountry'' or ''Couteau District''. The Thompson nomenclature is still used today, although not as an official designation. It is often used combination forms, such as the Thompson-Okanagan or

Thompson-Nicola Regional District The Thompson–Nicola Regional District is a regional district in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The Canada 2021 Census population was 143,680 and the area covers 44,449.49 square kilometres. The administrative offices are in the ma ...

. Weather forecasts and tourism information refer to the area as Thompson-Shuswap. Although strictly referring to the entire Thompson basin, and potentially used in that context, more commonly it refers to the immediate vicinity of the Thompson River, with subareas such as the Bonaparte Country or

Nicola Country The Nicola Country, also known as the Nicola Valley and often referred to simply as The Nicola, and originally Nicolas' Country or Nicholas' Country, adapted to Nicola's Country and simplified since, is a region in the British Columbia Interior, S ...

usually referred to separately. The term "North Thompson" used to refer to the valley of the

North Thompson River The North Thompson River is the northern branch of the Thompson River, the largest tributary of the Fraser River, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It originates at the toe of the Thompson Glacier in the Premier Range of the Cariboo M ...

. The term "South Thompson" refers not only to the short valley of the

South Thompson River The South Thompson River is the southern branch of the Thompson River, the largest tributary of the Fraser River, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It originates at the outlet of Little Shuswap Lake at the town of Chase and flows app ...

but also to Kamloops and towns westward along the Thompson and the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

, as far as Spences Bridge. The Thompson Canyon downstream from there to Lytton at the Thompson's confluence with the Fraser is usually referred to as being part of the Fraser Canyon. That is also applied to the highway from

Hope Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's own life, or the world at large. As a verb, Merriam-Webster defines ''hope'' as "to expect with confid ...

to Spences Bridge or sometimes Cache Creek.

Climate and terrain

The Thompson Country is semi-arid and desert-like, except in the upper reaches of the North Thompson and in the higher areas of the plateaus to the north and south of the river (the

Bonaparte Plateau The Bonaparte Plateau, in British Columbia, Canada, is a sub-plateau of the Thompson Plateau which extends to the Quesnel River and lies between the Cariboo Mountains on the east and the Fraser River on the west. The Thompson Plateau is itself ...

and

Thompson Plateau The Thompson Plateau forms the southern portion of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia, Canada, lying to the west of Okanagan Lake, south of the Thompson River and east of (although never adjoining it) the Fraser River. At its most southern ...

, respectively). Because of the low elevation of the valley's floor, winter temperatures are not too severe. As the region is in the immediate rainshadow of the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains () are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the British Columbia Coast, Coast of British Columbia sout ...

and

Cascade Range The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington (state), Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as m ...

, summer temperatures are among the hottest in Canada. The region is characterized by sagebrush and rangeland, with benchlands flanking the Thompson's deepening canyon from

Savona Savona (; ) is a seaport and (municipality) in the west part of the northern Italian region of Liguria, and the capital of the Province of Savona. Facing the Ligurian Sea, Savona is the main center of the Riviera di Ponente (the western se ...

downstream. Desert and, higher up, pine-covered mountains and hillsides flank the river and

Kamloops Lake Kamloops Lake in British Columbia, Canada is situated on the Thompson River just west of Kamloops. The lake is 1.6 km wide, 29 km long, and up to 152 m deep. In prehistoric time, the lake was much longer, perhaps 20x, with adjacent sil ...

, which lies at the heart of the region. Lytton often vies with other interior towns for the title of "Canada's Hot Spot", with summer temperatures regularly topping . Since the nineteenth century, ranching has been the historic core of the economy in the South Thompson and the adjoining Nicola and Bonaparte countries. It is also important northeast of Kamloops in the

Shuswap Highland The Shuswap Highland is a plateau-like hilly area of in British Columbia, Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the P ...

country, towards Adams Lake and the rest of the

Shuswap Country The Shuswap Country, or simply the Shuswap (pronounced /ˈʃuːʃwɑːp/) and called Secwepemcúl̓ecw in Secwepemctsín, is a term used in the Canadian province of British Columbia to refer to the environs of Shuswap Lake. The upper reaches o ...

. Logging and tourism are other traditionally important industries, especially in the North Thompson.

History

Most of the Thompson Country is the territory of the Secwepemc people, who traditionally spoke a Salishan language. From Spences Bridge downstream, the Thompson and the Nicola basins are the territory of the various

Nlaka'pamux The Nlakaʼpamux or Nlakapamuk ( ; ), also previously known as the ''Thompson'', '' Thompson River Salish'', ''Thompson Salish'', ''Thompson River Indians'' or ''Thompson River people'', and historically as the ''Klackarpun'', ''Haukamaugh'', ''K ...

nations. The Thompson Country, the South Thompson in particular, was one of the first areas of the

Colony of British Columbia The Colony of British Columbia refers to one of two colonies of British North America, located on the Pacific coast of modern-day Canada: * Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) * Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871) See also * History of ...

to be opened by the government to land alienation and active settlement by non-indigenous peoples. Fur traders originally used what was known as the Brigade Trail, which ran from the

Okanagan The Okanagan ( ), also called the Okanagan Valley and sometimes the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is part of ...

via Kamloops northwestward to Green Lake, by the last leg of the

Okanagan Trail The Okanagan Trail was an inland route to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush from the Lower Columbia region of the Washington and Oregon Territories in 1858–1859. The route was essentially the same as that used by the Hudson's Bay Company fur brig ...

from

Washington Territory The Washington Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

to the

Fraser Canyon The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser Ca ...

. Its western portion was the key section of the

Cariboo Road The Cariboo Road (also called the Cariboo Wagon Road, the Great North Road or the Queen's Highway) was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It was built in response to the Cariboo Gold Rus ...

connecting the

to the

Cariboo Plateau The Cariboo Plateau is a volcanic plateau in south-central British Columbia, Canada. It is part of the Fraser Plateau which is a northward extension of the North American Plateau. The southern limit of the plateau is the Bonaparte River although ...

and its distant goldfields. This area has been important to the history of British Columbia. Many of the earliest ranches in the Interior are still operating today. The Douglas Lake Ranch, based in the Nicola Country but spanning the Thompson and including some of the Shuswap, is one of the world's largest. Near Cache Creek, the historic Ashcroft Manor and Semlin Ranch and others were British military land-grants. The Ashcroft and Semlin ranches were owned and occupied by a Lieutenant-Governor and a Premier, respectively. The Thompson's settlement, history, and economy have been dominated by the two transcontinental rail lines flanking the river: the Canadian National Railway parallels the North Thompson, and the Canadian Pacific Railway the South Thompson.

References

External links

Aerial view of classic Thompson Country landscape, looking northeast from above the mouth of the Nicola RiverRandall & Kat's Flying Photos
{{Subdivisions of British Columbia, regions=yes Interior of British Columbia Thompson-Nicola Regional District History of British Columbia