But Ritchie Doyle is donning other boots and leggings these days, those of intrepid 237-year-old British explorer David Thompson.
“I think I'm going to enjoy Thompson just as much as William Clark,” Doyle says. “But the darn thing is the accent. Thompson was born in London to Welsh parents, so I don't think he sounded like I speak.”
Doyle got in the habit of performing as Clark at the headwaters before and during the Lewis and Clark bicentennial commemoration (2003-2006). He attracted a collection of what Doyle calls “self-declared groupies” - William Clark/Doyle fans in their 60s and 70s.
Then, without so much as a dress rehearsal, he plunged into Thompson in front of 75 people.
“I was worried if it would get off the ground and fly,” he said. “I think it got off the ground OK.”
Doyle gave a repeat performance a week later at Travelers' Rest State Park in Lolo, and his David Thompson career was officially launched.
It's good timing, too. Five years of bicentennial commemorations based on Thompson's life and travels, marked jointly by Canada and the United States, kicked off this year.
“I'd dare say there are many more Montanans who know who Ritchie Doyle is than who David Thompson is,” said Mark Sherouse, executive director of Humanities Montana and its Speakers Bureau. “An explorer of Thompson's stature, who mapped our rivers, wintered here among the Salish and Kootenai, and climbed our mountains before any other Europeans, deserves to be better known in Montana.”
After 11 years of stepping into Clark's skin and boots, Doyle knows the Thompson persona will be a work in progress.
“It's going to change and evolve,” Doyle says. “To make it better, I think I'm just going to concentrate on stories and not worry about providing a wealth of information on Thompson's life.”
It'll be hard to pare down. Thompson's legacy, it's becoming clear, is as much about his nuanced relationships with Native tribes and with his own family as it is about maps and rivers.
Groomed as a boy by the Hudson's Bay Co., Thompson became the greatest surveyor of the 19th century for the rival North West Co. In 1807, the year after Lewis and Clark quit the country, Thompson first crossed the Canadian Rockies and began establishing the transmountain fur trade.
His wife, a Metis named Charlotte, and three of their children accompanied him in his first trek over the divide at Howse Pass, in modern-day Banff National Park.
Thompson ultimately explored western Canada and the northwestern United States, first entering Montana in 1808. He was the first to map the Kootenai, Flathead and Clark Fork rivers, and his name remains in these parts at Thompson Falls, where he established Saleesh House in 1809.
In 1812, Thompson climbed a bare knoll - either Waterworks Hill or Mount Jumbo - and mapped the greater Missoula Valley.
Doyle sets his portrayal of Thompson in 1816, after the explorer retired with his large family to the Montreal area. It's not a coincidence that Thompson was 46, the same age as Doyle today.
“He's setting to work making those great maps of his exploration for the North West Co.,” Doyle said. “He's talking about his hopes of being recognized for his efforts and making a little money.”
The company's three-year stipend to work on the maps had recently run out, Doyle explained, “so he's wondering what he's going to do with his life.”
It turns out Thompson wrote prolifically in succeeding years, but died blind and in poverty at age 86. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the winter of 1857.
Doyle draws much of his information from Thompson's own writings, many of which the Champlain Society has made available online through the University of Toronto.
Doyle looks for funny stuff.
“Humor is one thing that's always nice, and I think David had a sense of humor,” he said.
When one of Thompson's voyageurs was caught “making advances” on a Salish woman, the Indians wanted to kill the man, he said.
Thompson noted the Salish practice of gelding their male horses. “So he told them: If this man ever enters your tents again, geld him. But let him live,” Doyle said. “And the Indians laughed and agreed. I think David was being funny there.”
Through his narratives, Thompson also displayed a passion Doyle strives to re-create.
“He was a religious man with a very moral backbone. He didn't like alcohol, for instance, and didn't want to trade it among the Indians,” Doyle says.
Introspective material from Thompson is richer than that of Clark. In that regard, it's similar to Doyle's first big gig as a historic figure. Starting in the early 1990s, he portrayed cowboy/author Teddy “Blue” Abbott, who wrote extensively about his life on the range.
“He has done literally hundreds of programs for us,” Sherouse said. “Ritchie is an actor, primarily, but he has brought to his presentations very serious study and care for historical accuracy, which his audiences, as well as the members of our board and review panel, appreciate.”
Doyle is a big man, more along the lines of Clark than Thompson. But he's not afraid to mix with his audience, a trait that intrigues Mike Wallace.
The president of the Travelers' Rest Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Wallace has seen Doyle many times with one of those hard-to-read copies of a William Clark map spread on the ground, pointing out nooks and crannies to curious eyes.
Wallace tells the story of another Doyle project: recording the sounds of the Lewis and Clark Trail. With a grant and some high-tech audio equipment, Doyle's been working on it for more than a year. One of his recent successes was a night recording wolves at the top of Lolo Pass from his car.
“I think it tells a lot about Ritchie,” Wallace said. “A lot of folks who re-enact aren't willing to get down and dirty. The thing about Ritchie is he's on his hands and knees showing a little kid or a great-grandmother. Then he's out in the woods all by himself surrounded by wolves.”
A musician and a songwriter, Doyle said his big dream is to produce a compilation of stories and songs about Montana, hopefully with a humorous bent.
He's not done with Clark, though. Just last week he was a step-on guide for a bus of 45 people from Travelers' Rest to Lolo Pass. And he took two people from Connecticut along the Lolo Trail, which is where he had one of his several encounters with howling wolves.
“I expect I'll be portraying William Clark for years to come,” he said.
Even Teddy “Blue” Abbott's still is in his repertoire.
“I'm not trying to market it,” he said, “but he might be up and riding at any time.”
This Sunday, Doyle tackles a different role. He'll play the Baron Cornelius O'Keefe, one of the Missoula Valley's early characters, in Stories and Stones at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery.
An O'Keefe-style Irish brogue is easy, he says.
Thompson's presumed style of speech is a different story.
“I've been giving David Thompson some kind of English accent,” Doyle says, “but I worry I'm going to slip into Irish.”
Reporter Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com.
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