"In 1783, Pond's explorations led him to the Athabasca, a region stretching from Lac Ile-a-la-Crosse to the Peace River. There he explored waterways around Lake Athabasca and determined the approximate locations of Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake from First Nations peoples of the area. (See Map.) From his notes and diaries Peter Pond drew a map showing rivers and lakes of the Athabasca region, including what was known of the whole area from Hudson Bay to the Rocky Mountains and interpolating his information to the Arctic Ocean or Northwest Passage. ...
The maps that Peter Pond subsequently drew [as an accomplished geographer], based on his explorations and on the information provided to him by First Nations peoples, ultimately gained international recognition for Pond at the end of the 18th century."

"Contemporary writers seem to agree that Pond was a loner, and a short-tempered one at that, although he always seemed to get on well with Indians and in his early trading days gained a reputation as a peace maker. He appears to have been a very confident, aggressive man."1

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¹ Alexander Mackenzie Explorer, p. 15.