Founder of The North Face Dies in Kayaking Accident
OutdoorHub Reporters 12.10.15
Renowned conservationist, outdoorsman, and businessman Douglas Tompkins was reported to have died on Tuesday as the result of a kayaking incident in southern Chile.
Tompkins was kayaking with several others in General Carrera Lake on December 8 when strong waves caused the kayaks to capsize. A military patrol boat was able to save some of the kayakers, while Tompkins and others were airlifted to a hospital by helicopter. According to the BBC, Tompkins was found unconscious and suffering from hypothermia, and died hours later. He was 72.
“We are all deeply saddened by the news of Douglas Tompkins’ passing. Doug was special to many of us,” The North Face, the equipment and clothing company which he helped found in 1964, wrote in a statement.
Tompkins is remembered as an adventurer and philanthropist who not only enjoyed the outdoors, but sought to protect it. The son of an antiques dealer and decorator, he spent part of his childhood in New York City. Despite that, he was drawn to the outdoors. He spent much of his youth traveling around the world and in 1963 started a mountaineering guide service in California. There, he met his first wife Susie. A year later the pair would start The North Face as a mail order company selling climbing and camping equipment. Today, The North Face operates 55 retail and 20 outlet locations in the United States, and many more abroad.
In 1971, Tompkins helped found the clothing brand Esprit before leaving the business world entirely in 1989. From then on he focused on land conservation, founding the Foundation for Deep Ecology and The Conservation Land Trust. Starting in the early 1990s, he and his second wife Kris Tompkins bought over 2 million acres of wilderness in parts of Chile and Argentina to set aside for conservation. The large amount of land purchased not only made Tompkins the largest landowner in the region, it made him one of the largest private landowners of anywhere in the world.
“He was a passionate advocate for the environment, and his legacy of conservation is one that we hope to help continue in the work we do every day,” The North Face wrote on Facebook.
According to The New York Times, Tompkins was working on creating new parks in Patagonia and the Iberá wetlands at the time of his death.
“He flew airplanes, he climbed to the top of mountains all over the world,” said his daughter Summer Tompkins Walker. “To have lost his life in a lake and have nature just sort of gobble him up is just shocking.”
None of the other five kayakers with Thompkins at the time of the accident were seriously injured.
