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
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T. C. ELLIOTT
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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 .