Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 27/In the Land of the Kootenai
In the Land of the Kootenai
By T. C. ELLIOTT
We foregather at an ancient traverse in the land of the Kootenai . Twenty miles to the north lies an unguarded and almost invisible frontier , which separates two great nations . At our feet flows the beautiful river Kootenai , which rises many miles to the north -east among the glaciers of the Canadian Alps , and here , for a distance , touches elbows with the Republic before returning to the Dominion to complete its course to the Columbia . The winding of this stream typifies that international comity, which has so long per meated our history and now is happily recognized in the per sonnel and program of this occasion .
The story of this river is , broadly speaking , the history of this land; its discovery and exploration, its people, its early commerce, its diplomatic relations, its gold fields, its settlement and growth. In the region tributary to the river dwell the Kootenais, a people originally engaged in hunting for livelihood . These Indians have witnessed the coming of the explorer and fur - trader with his pack - horse , canoe and happy - go - lucky voyageur, of the early overland traveler and the pioneer emigrant to the Columbia, of the missionary o f the Cross , o f the hewer o f the boundary line , o f the excited prospector with his pick and shovel , o f the pack - train , steam boat , locomotive and automobile . Their habitat i s an ex tensive region o f forests , streams , lakes , meadows and lofty mountains . Their eyes have been constantly o n the hills from whence cometh my help ” , and their camps i n the shad ows thereof . We d o well t o pause here and review history and plant a memorial t o those who long ago led the way t o and through this land . A curious bit o f natural geography , almost a freak o f nature , features our story . The Columbia River rises i n British Columbia i n a chain o f three lakes and flows north 1 Address a t Bonners Ferry , Idaho , July 19th , 1926 , a t dedication o f monument there b y Columbia River Historical Expedition . 2Official spelling b y U . S . Geographic Board
Kootenay according t o Geographic Board o f Canada .
T. C. ELLIOTT
3
two hundred miles before it turns south to the United States .
The Kootenai River , flowing southward from its source ,
passes within two miles of the upper of these lakes . The
watershed between lake and river is not a mountain or
ridge , but a level , gravelly flat , out of which a large spring
feeds the lake as its only visible tributary . The first one
hundred miles of the Columbia have a fall of less than forty
feet, to where the river flows through a gorge . Geologists
offer the opinion that originally the waters of this first hun
dred mile stretch of the Columbia drained southward
through this Kootenai River.4
The Kootenais are an aboriginal people , separate and
distinct from the larger linguistic families of the Pacific
Slope , their speech unusually soft and musical . They first
emerge into the view of white men during the last years of
the eighteenth century . Earlier in that century the litera
ture of the Mississippi Valley contains references to In
dians ( Snakes ) residing beyond the “ Stoney ” mountains on
what was called Spanish river ; but those were mere refer
ences , not a record of actual contact . When Lewis and
Clark , in 1805 , ascended the Missouri , they did not meet
an Indian between the Mandan Villages and the source of
Jefferson Fork . Yet , even before 1800 , the Kootenais , first
of the trans - mountain tribes , had appeared on the eastern
slopes of the Rocky mountains of Canada to barter with the
traders of the Forts des Prairies upon the Saskatchewan .
Rocky Mountain House , one of the prominent trading
posts of the North West Company , was then located about
one hundred miles southwest of the site of Edmonton .
3Now called Redgrave Canyon . Discovery of the Columbia was
just above this gorge , at Blaeberry Creek up which the Indian trail
ran to the summit of the Rockies , and beyond . The name Kootenai
was applied to this part of the Columbia , and our Kootenai was
called McGillivray's River , in honor of the leading official of the
North West Company then .
- For latest discussion of this see " The Columbia Unveiled ,” page
111 , by M. J . Lorraine . A canal was once dug and used connecting Upper Columbia Lake with this Kootenai River . 5For scientific study of this family consult “ Notes on the Koote nay Indians, ” by A. F. Chamberlain , in American Antiquarian for September , 1893 , and September , 1894 .
Among the Rockies west of that post was a beautiful moun tain meadow , called Kootenai Plain , because thus far came the Kootenais from across the great divide . They usually did not go farther for fear of the Piegans or Blackfeet of the prairies , and the traders , some of them Scotchmen , gladly journeyed there to meet them . Over the mountain trail of the Kootenais the fur traders of Canada began , as early as 1800 , to send their freeman and trappers ( Saulteux , Iroquois and Canadian French ) to spy out the road and the land . For five years or more these men penetrated the Kootenai country , and beyond among the Saleesh , Kullyspell, Skeetshoa and Spokane tribes . Their speech was French patois . They were untutored , and no written record remains , but their presence is well marked in Indian tradition and local nomenclature . The names Tete Plete , Pend d'Oreille , and Coeur d'Alene originated then . If journals kept at the trading posts of the upper Sas katchewan had been more generally preserved doubtless mention would be found of the infrequent return of these itinerant trappers , and interesting items as to the countries they had visited .' Next over this trail ( later known as Howse Pass ) came the white man , and his coming marks an event of real im portance in the history of the United States and Canada . This was the discovery of the source of the Columbia . The long search for a mysterious " River of the West ” is a theme of itself , but soon after 1800 the fur traders of the Sas katchewan must have known that one or two large rivers existed in the Kootenai country . Whether these connected with the Tacouche Tesse ( Fraser ) of Alexander Mackenzie , or with the Columbia of Robert Gray , was not known , and an answer to that question was awaited with impatience by the traders . Rivalries with the X. Y . Company until 1804 . delayed this answer , but following the Lewis and Clark Ex pedition and the advent of Simon Fraser in the Fraser River 6Possibly here was an early application of Pope's phrase " Lo ! the poor Indian , whose untutored mind ” , etc. ?The journals of Alexander Henry do mention these men .
T. C . ELLIOTT
country , the officials of the North West Company hastened
to proceed . In the fall of 1806 Jacques Finlay , familiarly
known as Jaco , a man with a mixture of English and French
Indian blood in his veins , accompanied by wife and chil
dren , was outfitted and sent over the trail to make it pas
sable for pack animals , and to construct a canoe where the
trail ended at one of the large rivers . Then , as soon as pos
sible in the early spring of 1807 , came David Thompson ,
with telescope , sextant and compass , with clerk , hunters and
trading goods, to chart ad explore , and to open marts of
trade in this Kootenai land .
Of David Thompson , London charity - school boy , self
educated youth , God - fearing man , skilled astronomer and
geographer , another will speak , and we merely pause to
salute him as discoverer of the sources ( and of three - fourths
the entire length ) of the Columbia , in those vivid lines of
the poet laureate of Canada : '
6
There the enormous ranges stood
Forbidding against the sky,
Where only the bear and bighorn climbed
And the eagle's brood could fly :
His was the foot must find a road
For the World to enter by .
Up he followed the azure thread
Of a winding stream for guide ,
By rapid and reach and shingly beach ,
Then over the great divide .
Then he saw a river broad and strong
Swing past in silver tide .
Down through a maze of canyon walls
He watched the mighty stream
Sweep on in conquering plentitude
8For David Thompson's written report of this discovery see Ore
gon Historical Quarterly , Vol . XXVI , Number 1 .
' Bliss Carman , at Lake Windermere celebration in August , 1922 .
With arrowy flight and gleam , And knew that he had found at last The river of his dream . Since a trading post was established near Bonners Fer ry , where we now stand, the final stanza of the poem is also appropriate : And here has house was builded , Here let us stand and say , Here was a man full -sized , whose fame Shall never pass away While the stars shine and rivers run , In the land of Kootenai . Closely associated with David Thompson in exploration and trade was a remarkable Scotchman , Finnan MacDonald by name . When a boy of less than a dozen years Finnan migrated , with his parents , from one of those unpronounce able shires of Scotland to the Glengarry district of Ontario ; there a family home was established, and in a churchyard there his body lies . His older brother , John , became a trusted officer of the North West Company and Finnan fol lowed into the fur trade without waiting to obtain the usual education , a fact which annoyed his brother , and part ly accounts for there being no personal record of the many experiences of his active career . But Finnan soon became quite a linguist . Association with trappers and voyageurs fitted his tongue to the spoken French , and nearly twenty years ' continuous life ( no vaca tions for Finnan , if you please !) among Indian tribes west of the Rockies rendered him proficient in native dialects and Chinook jargon . Ross Cox tells us that the oaths he uttered under provocation were a diabolical mixture of Scotch , French and Indian sounds , quite wonderful to listen to . He married a daughter of a Kullyspell ( Pend d'Oreille ) chief , and his children were , as soon as possible , baptised into the Roman Catholic faith of his family . Some leading citizens of Montana and British Columbia can trace their
T. C. ELLIOTT
lineage to him . Physically he was a Samson , and his feats
of strength are traditional today among the Flathead tribe .
The story of his fight single -handed with a wounded buffa
lo bull is classic in fur trade literature .
The first trading post established west of the Rocky
Mountains was Kootanae House , near Lake Windemere in
British Columbia . There David Thompson spent the win
ters of 1807-8 and 1808-9 , trading , exploring , and gathering
information as to the country . MacDonald , as his avant
courier among the Indians to the south , probably was the
first white man to descend the Kootenai River to Lake
Kootenai , and the first to traverse the trail across the bend
of the river , from Bonners Ferry to Cranbrook and Fort
Steele , the present route of the Canadian Pacific.10
The winter of 1808-9 MacDonald spent in a leather lodge
above Kootenai Falls in Montana ( at the mouth of Rainey
Creek , probably ) , and there built a log hut to protect the
trading goods and furs . That was the first building erected
in Western Montana by white men . After 1809 his career
carried him into all parts of Idaho , Oregon and Western
Montana and into the Thompson River region of British
Columbia ; and his red hair and beard were known to every
Indian tribe of the Columbia .
Another associate of Thompson in the Kootenai country
was James McMillan , a clerk of the North West Company .
During the winter of 1808 he crossed the Rockies on snow
shoes , with dog sleds and more goods for trade , and joined
MacDonald above Kootenai Falls . No written records have
been found , but circumstances and later events indicate that
one or both of these white men may have visited the Flat
head , Kullyspel and Spokane tribes that winter or spring .
Chapter XXII of the journals kept by Alexander Henry at
Rocky Mountain House in 1811 contains many ethnographic
and geographic facts as to the trans -mountain tribes and
regions . This information had been brought to Mr. Henry
from the field , by Thompson and others . McMillan was a
keen , intelligent man , capable of comprehending and report
10The Moyie was originally called MacDonald's River .
ing such data , and he visited the Forts des Prairies fre quently . In 1810 the Hudson's Bay Company , from their trading post contiguous to Rocky Mountain House , out fitted an expedition under Joseph Howse to winter beyond the Rockies , and McMillan was sent to follow and report their movements . This errand would have taken him into the vicinity of Flathead Lake , when few , if any , white men had seen that lake . In later years McMillan was the trusted officer of the Hudson's Bay Company who , under instruc tions of Gov. Geo . Simpson , explored the lower Fraser River and built Fort Langley . Of his antecedents and later career nothing is yet known . These forceful men , Thompson , MacDonald and McMil lan , were the discoverers and explorers of Kootenai land , a task calling for skill , endurance , patience and fortitude of high order . Consider the economic conditions involved . The commercial base , from 1807 to 1812 , was Fort William on Lake Superior , where goods had been brought from the sea port of Montreal . From Fort William , in packages of about ninety pounds each , these goods for the Indian trade were transported , in canoes upon the streams and on the backs of men over the portages , to the headwaters of the Saskatch ewan ; thence by pack animals over the Rockies to the Colum bia ; thence by canoe again one hundred miles upstream to Columbia Lake ; thence across the short portage to the Kootenai and down this river to the Indian roads leading to the Flatheads ( near Jennings , Montana ) and the Kullyspell and Spokane tribes ( here at Bonners Ferry ) . The furs gathered in trade had to be carried over the same long and weary road to Fort William . In May of 1810 Thompson arrived here ( Bonners Ferry ) with the season's furs from Kullyspell House on Pend d'Oreille Lake , and Sa leesh House on Thompson's Prairie , Montana . His pub lished narrative of that date reads : " May 17th . We got the canoes repaired and in the afternoon with forty - six packs of furs and eight bags of pemmican we went off for the Rocky Mountain defiles . Mr. James McMillan , one man and myself and sixteen horses , went by land. " These forty - six
T. C . ELLIOTT
packs of furs weighed a little more than two tons , and re
presented the first freight shipment from Bonners Ferry
east.17
This occasion naturally directs attention to this particu
lar locality in the land of the Kootenai ; prominent because
the ancient crossing -place for the Indians in their travels ,
and the northerly end of the time - worn trail leading to the
neighboring tribes to the southward . That trail has now
become the busy highways for the locomotive and automobile
of the white men . On David Thimpson's large and eloquent
map , which he drew in 1813-14 immediately after retiring
from field service with the North West Company , this trail
is traced under the designation ,
" Lake Indian Road " ; the
Indians residing around Kootenai Lake were at times called
Lake Indians and it led to those residing around Kullyspell
( Pend d'Oreille ) Lake . This map also shows , at the bend in
the Kootenai River here , the usual initials ,
"NW Co. "
to
indicate that a trading post was then located here — the
only post so indicated on the Lower Kootenai . The starting
point and meanderings of this old Indian trail , and the pre
cise location of this trading post , are items for a later and
more detailed study , but the date and circumstances of the
beginning of organized and continuous trade here are perti
nent and of historical interest .
Thompson first saw this crossing place , and road , in the
spring of 1808 , while on an exploring voyage down the
Kootenai . He first used the road in the fall of 1809 , in Sep
tember and again in October , when penetrating south to
ward the Spokane country with goods to establish the posts
on Lake Pend d'Oreille and Thompson's Prairie ; and he
again passed through here in May , 1810 , as already cited . At
these times only was he here , and the entries in his journals ,
though quite voluminous , are silent as to any trading post
here then , or as to any of his clerks or associates having
11The Great Northern Ry . was not here to receive it , and what else
could David Thompson have done ?
12According to Indian tradition this was located at the mouth of
Deep Creek , a few miles below Bonners Ferry .
been sent here previously to establish one . The whereabouts of his men and clerks during those years is very well known from those journals , and those of Alexander Henry . The year 1811 was a busy one with David Thompson ; he then surveyed the Columbia from source to mouth , and opened up for travel the famous trade route across Atha baska Pass . In September of that year he was at Boat En campment at the western end of the pass and the following appears in his journal : " Sept 25th .
- * by the evening
sent off the Goods in my wood Canoe & 9 men
- with
Michel Kinville in charge, till he sees Mr. Finan McDonald . " These were the first trading goods brought into Columbia district from Fort William over Athabaska Pass , and in his narrative Thompson speaks of them as “ for the supply of the lower posts on McGillivray's , the Saleesh and Spokane Rivers . " He himself followed down the Columbia a little later , en route to the Flathead country to spend the winter . In November , while traveling by land with pack animals and in camp at the crossing of Pend d'Oreille River below Sand Point , Idaho , two of his men reported as follows : " November 14 , Thursday , A fine day . Learning from Bercier & Methode that the Lake indians do not hunt , but only gamble & keep the men starving . I told them as the Season was fast advancing to lay up the Furrs they have , abt 4 Packs , & make the best of their way back to Kinville , & re turn to the Skeetshoo River with all the property & c . as to keep up a Post there , 18 with so few goods , is expence to no purpose .” The whereabouts of Kinville the following spring would indicate that these instructions were countermanded , for when coming down the Saleesh River ( our Clark Fork ) in canoes with his men and furs , Thompson wrote in his journal : “ March 15th (1812) * * At 9-42 a m stopped 1 1-2 H to try & send some young men to Kinville on Mc Gillivray's river " . This visit was at the old Indian camp at 13This has been interpreted as referring to Kullyspell House , which Thompson passed within two miles the following day without stopping or mentioning it ; and possibly so . More careful analysis seems , however , to connect it with the trading post on Kootenai River .
T. C. ELLIOTT
the mouth of Clark Fork, a few miles above Kullyspell
House , which post this same journal entry mentions as being
unoccupied .
It may be stated then , with some assurance , that Michel
Kinville , an intelligent French - Canadian employee of the
North West Company , carried on the first trade here at Bon
ners Ferry , and that Finnan MacDonald , 14 or Kinville , locat
ed and began the construction of the post , during the year
1811 .
In December , 1811 , John George MacTavish , from Fort
William , arrived at Saleesh house to succeed David Thomp
son in the Columbia district , and proceeded on to establish
his headquarters at Spokane House , which continued for
twelve years to be the most important trading post in the
interior country . With MacTavish , or soon after , came
Nicholas Montour , who was sent to succeed Kinville here .
The commercial base was soon after shifted from Fort
William to the mouth of the Columbia , where the Pacific
Fur Company , capitalized by John Jacob Astor of New
York , in 1811 established what is now the city of Astoria .
Readers of Franchere's and Ross ' accounts of the Astoria
enterprise will recall an incident of the arrival there from
the interior of two strange Indians , wearing deer -skin cloth
ing and carrying a letter addressed to Mr. John Stuart ,
Fort Estacatadene , New Calidonia . Whether both of these
were women masquerading in mens ' clothing is a trifle ob
scure , but at least one was a Kootenai woman , playing the
part of a prophetess and medicine woman.15 Both narrowly
escaped death that summer at the Cascades , while returning
up the Columbia , as noted in Thompson's journal entry of
July 28th , 1811 :
" but had not Kootanaes been under our
immediate care , she would have been killed for the lies she
told on her way to the Sea .”
This is our record of the first
quack who tried to practice at Astoria .
14Mac Donald and McMillan were both with Thompson among the
Flatheads during the winter of 1811-12 , and no one seems to have
been trading at Kullyspell House on Pend d'Oreille Lake .
15See David Thompson's Narrative , page 512 .
In July , 1812 , John Clarke , a chief trader of the Pacific Fur Company , was sent , with goods and men , from Astoria to establish a trading post ( called Fort Spokane ) adjacent to Spokane House . Competition at Spokane meant competi tion among the Kootenais also ; and we read of the arrival of Francis Benjamin Pillett at Bonners Ferry that fall to op pose Nicholas Montour , of the North West Company , and of a spectacular bloodless duel between these two men , " with pocket pistols at six paces ; both hits ; one in the collar of the coat , and the other in the leg of the trousers . Two of their men acted as seconds , and the tailor speedily healed their wounds . " This is the animated occount by Ross Cox . Mr. Pillett did not return , for before another winter the “ Northwesters ” had succeeded to the business of the Astor Company , and Mr. Montour had this field to himself . The name longest associated with the trading post on the Kootenai ( and later called Fort Kootenai ) was that of William Kittson , who came to the Columbia in 1818 as a “ Northwester " and , after amalgamation ( 1821 ) , con tinued with the Hudson's Bay Company . This trader car ried the title of “ Major " among his associates , because of having been a voltigeur in Canada in the War of 1812. He was a faithful and forceful man ; a brother of Norman Kitt son of St. Paul , who was associated with James J. Hill in the early transportation enterprises of Minnesota . He mar ried Nelly MacDonald , oldest daughter of Finnan MacDon ald , and died at Fort Vancouver in 1841 . The location of the trading post was not permanent here . Later it was moved to the mouth of Rainey Creek above the falls , still later to a site opposite Tobacco Plains , and finally to the boundary at Gateway , Montana . The dates of these removals are obscure . The Kootenais traded often in com pany with their neighbors , the Flatheads , at Flathead post . The bloodless duel in 1812 may be called the first chapter in another contest of wits , equally bloodless and continuing for many years , namely : the diplomatic struggle over the location of the international boundary . The fact that trade was actually carried on here at the Kootenai River by the Astor people was not made an item of loud discussion in
T. C. ELLIOTT
the negotiations ; nevertheless , under certain official pro
posals this river would have been the boundary instead of
that unguarded line twenty miles away .
In 1823-25 , while George Canning was foreign secretary
of England and John Quincy Adams President of the United
States, the boundary negotiations were acute . Removal of
the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company from As
toria to Vancouver on the northern side of the Columbia , 16
just then at Canning's own suggestion , indicates the intent
of that astute statesman . His offer , through plenipotenti
aries , was that the line extend west from the summit of the
Rockies along the forty - ninth parallel of north latitude to the
most northeastern branch of the Columbia , which is the
Kootenai , then down that river to the Columbia , and down
the Columbia to ocean . When , in 1842 , Lord Ashburton
came to Washington to negotiate with Daniel Webster , he
carried authority to renew the proposal , and in the final con
ferences in 1844-6 the same offer was considered . Mitchell's
map , in general use by the emigrants to Oregon during those
years , emphasizes this line , and it is now generally conceded
by historians that the English secretaries never seriously
contended for a line south of the Kootenai and the Columbia .
This suggests that , to Canning at least , the influence of the
Astor enterprise may have been farther reaching than has
been commonly supposed .
Mention has been made of the trail across the elbow ,
from Bonners Ferry to the river again . This trail continued
northward to Lake Windermere , and was the artery of travel
between the Upper and the Lower Kootenais ; now between
the East and West Kootenay , political divisions of British
Columbia . In later years it became the much traveled road
of settlers and miners and merchants from the south into the
Kootenai Country . How long the first Kootanae House was
maintained as a trading post is not known , but the traders
of the Saskatchewan soon discovered a more direct road to
and from it , by Bow River and Simpson or Vermillion Pass ,
to the Columbia a few miles below Lake Windermere . These
16See Oregon Historical Quarterly , volume XX , pages 25-34 .
stretches of ancient Indian trails now constitute the wonder ful scenic highway for tourist travel by automobile between Bonners Ferry and Lake Louise , Banff and Calgary . In fur -trade days this was the shorter and quicker land route to Oregon , as compared with the canoe route by the Atha baska and Columbia rivers . Time does not permit extended mention of the early use of this route ; by Sir George Simpson on his journey around the world and by the first organized company of emigrants to the Columbia , ( from Red River 1841 ) ; by Warre and Vavasour , two officers of the British army , traveling in cognito to take possession of Cape Disappointment at the mouth of the Columbia , for use in event of war ; and by Peter Skene Ogden , their escort and companion ( 1844 ) ; by Pierre Jean De Smet , the Jesuit missionary to the Indian tribes of the Rocky Mountains ( 1844 ) ; by the bands of hur rying miners and packers to the Kootenai gold fields during the sixties ; and by others . But are not these written in the books of the chronicles , journals , documents and the printed pages of those early days , when Bonners Ferry was the gate way for trade and travel to and from this Kootenai land ? Graven on the monument we dedicate today are names of the sturdy white men , who first saw and used this an cient thoroughfare of the Indians ; names which rank high in the history of the Columbia . With these , and drawn from the more distant past , are two place - names : IDAHO , of Shoshonean origin , 7 literally spelled EE - DAH - How , mean ing the light and shadow racing down the mountain side , when the sun's rays burst around the peaks and over the ridges at break of day , sun - up and good morning ; KOOTENAI, of obscure meaning , but bringing to us visions of quiet val leys , noble rivers , lofty mountains and God's clear air . Nota ble and beautiful names — may posterity continue to honor them !!! 17
17See Oregon Hist. Quarterly , Vol . XVIII , p . 83 , for discussion by John E. Rees on Idaho ; Its Meaning , Origin and Application .