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ALAMEDA, United States — North Face Inc. founder and noted conservationist Douglas Tompkins died at 72 following a kayaking accident in his adopted country of Chile.
Tomkins died at the Coyhaique regional hospital in southern Chile on Tuesday from severe hypothermia, the regional government’s health department said in a statement. He suffered an accident while kayaking on General Carrera lake in the Patagonia region, it said.
"Very sad the passing of Douglas Tompkins, a man who stood up to major interests to defend the Patagonia," Chilean Senator Juan Pablo Letelier wrote on his Twitter account.
In addition to outdoor gearmaker North Face, Tompkins started fashion company Esprit Holdings Ltd. in the 1960s. He sold both companies and acquired hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Chile and neighboring Argentina for preservation. He and his wife Kristine developed Pumalin Park, a 715,000-acre site created to protect a swath of Patagonia.
By Randall Woods; editors: Vivianne Rodrigues, Andy Sharp, Rosalind Mathieson.
