Why North Face founder Douglas Tompkins' legacy isn't just about clothes
Douglas Tompkins, an environmentalist and businessman whose passion for conservation led him to buy millions of acres of land in Chile and Argentina in an effort to preserve them, died in a kayaking accident in Chile on Tuesday.
Mr. Tompkins first became known as a co-founder of the outdoors-focused The North Face and Esprit clothing companies, but after retiring in 1989, he fully embraced his passion for conservation, winning praise for efforts to raise awareness about the damage man-made activities such as dams or logging can have on ecosystems.
鈥淒oug was a passionate advocate for the environment," The North Face said in a statement. "His legacy of conservation will help ensure that there are outdoor spaces to be explored for generations to come."
In Chile, he created Pumal铆n Park, which spanned several hundred thousand acres of forests, lakes, and fjords that stretched from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean. He also owned hundreds of thousand of acres in the Patagonia region that spans southern Chile and Argentina, a mostly-untamed sparsely-settled area known for its natural beauty.
So it was a jolt to friends and family that the region that had consumed much of his time and energy was also where he lost his life in a lake that local authorities said is known for its widely varying water temperatures
On Tuesday, Tompkins was with five others on General Carrera Lake in the Patagonia region of southern Chile when strong waters caused their kayaks to capsize, exposing them to water temperatures of below 4 degrees celsius (or 40 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a radio interview with Pedro Salgado, a local prosecutor, the .
He was admitted to a local hospital鈥檚 intensive care unit but died several hours later. No one else was seriously injured.
鈥淗e flew airplanes, he climbed to the top of mountains all over the world,鈥� his daughter Summer Tompkins Walker told The Times. 鈥淭o have lost his life in a lake and have nature just sort of gobble him up is just shocking.鈥�
Tompkins was known for his iconoclastic nature and his deep commitment to the environment, having in the American West as a teenager after being expelled from a prestigious boarding school in Connecticut. 鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 too great on heeding authority,鈥� he told the writer Edward Humes, who wrote about him and other wealthy conservationists in a 2010 book.
While he was often identified with The North Face, which he founded with his wife in 1963 as a small outdoors-focused clothing store in San Francisco, selling it five years later, and with Esprit, which he started with his wife by selling women鈥檚 dresses from a Volkswagen bus 鈥� his passion for natural environments gradually became a full-time commitment.
鈥淭hese parks are our life's work, not the clothing chains we created, selling people clothes they don't need. We are the ones who keep putting obstacles in our own way by buying more land. I'm a troublemaker and I'm proud of it,鈥� he in 2009.
But as a billionaire able to purchase vast swaths of territory in foreign lands, his efforts were among Chileans and Argentines, who wondered if Tompkins鈥� vast land-holdings were coming at the expense of economic development in the region, as well as threatening their national sovereignty over the land.
He rejected the criticism. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to be very na茂ve and out to lunch to think that certain sectors of society are not going to put up resistance,鈥� he told the New York Times . 鈥淚f you鈥檙e not willing to take the political heat, then you shouldn鈥檛 get into the game of land conservation, especially on a large scale.鈥�
But for environmentalists, what some saw as uncompromising, others viewed as lifelong commitment to preserving the world鈥檚 natural beauty.
鈥淔or the environmental movement, not just in Chile but internationally, [Tompkins' death[ is a huge loss,鈥� Sara Larrain, a long-time friend of Tompkins who leads a Chilean environmental group, told the Associated Press. 鈥淭his is somebody who put all his energy, all his fortune, and his spirit in preserving ecosystems.鈥�
This report contains material from the Associated Press.
