SANTIAGO, Chile — Wealthy U.S. businessman and environmental activist Douglas Tompkins died Tuesday from severe hypothermia in a kayaking accident, Chilean authorities said.
The Aysten health service said Tompkins, 72, who was a co-founder of The North Face and Esprit clothing companies, was boating with five other foreigners when their kayaks capsized in a lake in the Patagonia region of southern Chile.
Tompkins died in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Coyhaique, a town about 1,000 miles south of Santiago.
Chile’s army said strong waves on General Carrerra Lake caused the group’s kayaks to capsize. A military patrol boat rescued three of the boaters, and a helicopter lifted out the other three, it said.
“Very sad the passing of Douglas Tompkins, a man who stood up to major interests to defend the Patagonia,” Chilean Sen. Juan Pablo Letelier wrote on his Twitter account.
After retiring in 1989, Tompkins was active in conservation and environmentalism. He owned hundreds of thousands of acres in Patagonia, a sparsely populated region of untamed rivers and other natural beauty that straddles southern Chile and Argentina.
On his Chilean land, he created Pumalin Park, 716,606 acres of forest, lakes and fjords stretching from the Andes to the Pacific.
Tompkins was one of the founders of The North Face, an activewear company that is now owned by VF Corp. of Greensboro, N.C. He also founded, with his wife, the Esprit clothing company.
