The Kalispell and Kootenai in Bonner County

For thousands of years before the arrival of fur traders in the early years of the 19th century, the area we now know as Bonner County was traversed and occupied by Native Americans, represented primarily by two tribes, the Kootenai and the Kalispel, or Pend Oreille.

When fur traders arrived, encampments were encountered in proximity to Lake Pend Oreille, the Clark Fork River, Pend Oreille River, and Priest River. Post-contact interactions altered and influenced both indigenous culture and the culture of the new arrivals.

While both tribes shared similar ways of life, they were also distinct from one another in some important ways. This exhibit examines the life of these first people of Northern Idaho, and showcases their unique contributions to Bonner County.

Kalispel

Kalispel (spelled Kullyspell by the explorer David Thompson) is an anglicized form of the Native American word Ql'ispé, meaning lake or river paddlers. Fur traders referred to bands of this tribe with the French phrase Pend d'Oreille (hanging from ear) in reference to their circular shell pendulous earrings.

The Kalispel are an interior Salish people and their language is derived from the Salish language. On their ancestral lands they were a broad spectrum hunter-gatherer society who utilized the richness of the area to subsist on native flora and fauna such as white-tailed deer, elk, caribou, bear, bull trout, mountain whitefish, suckers, camas bulbs, bitterroot, huckleberries, serviceberries and chokecherries. Occasionally they traveled outside the area to hunt buffalo in Montana or harvest salmon on the Columbia River at Kettle Falls, Washington. 

They wore clothing made from animal skins, sometimes decorated with porcupine quills. Stones, bone, and wood were sources of tools. Elk antler or sharpened ironwood sticks with antler handles were traditionally used by women for harvesting roots collected in cedar-bark sacks. Stick weirs and nets stretched across creeks were employed for fishing and fire drives for hunting deer. Sturgeon nose canoes, rafts, horses, and snowshoes provided transportation coupled with extensive foot travel.

The Kalispel resided in several encampments throughout the year. Drying racks, cook-stones and earth ovens were used for food preparation. Pit ovens were especially important for steam roasting their staple food of camas bulbs that occasionally were combined with black tree-lichen and softened with bear grease or deer marrow. They utilized hardstem bulrush (tule) and cattail stalks to make mats for encampment structures. These encampments were  sometimes family-oriented and sometimes village-oriented. Their spiritual philosophy revolved around a belief in the interconnectedness of all things.

The Kalispel people were greatly affected by disease-induced population declines of the 18th and 19th centuries  coupled with the influence of the fur economy, missionaries, and population encroachment on their resource base. The Kalispel Tribe, mainly descendants of the Lower Kalispel, currently maintain an active reservation in Usk, Washington, along the Pend Oreille River, where they keep a buffalo herd and hold a yearly powwow.  A division of Kalispel known as the Upper Kalispel, who tended to inhabit the Clark Fork River area as well as intermingle with the Lower Kalispel near Lake Pend Oreille, are today referred to as the Pend d'Oreille and are members of the  Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe on the Flathead Reservation near Elmo, Montana.

Learn more about the Kalispel today.

Kootenai

The Kootenai are a southern band of the Ktunaxa Nation centered in British Columbia with whom they share a   common ancestral language.

Historically, the Lower Kootenai, whose base was centered around mountainous terrain extending from the Kootenai River in Idaho to Kootenai Falls in Montana, were experts at water navigation and, like the Kalispel, utilized sturgeon-nose canoes. They fished for trout, sturgeon, whitefish and suckers, hunted waterfowl and large game, utilized plants such as water reeds, and made water-tight baskets of split roots.  Numerous species of berries and fruits were harvested, including serviceberries, chokecherries and huckleberries. Sap from the tamarack tree, cambium from the white pine and ponderosa pine, and black tree lichen also contributed to their diet. Kinnikinnick berries were used for food and the leaves were mixed with tobacco for smoking. Bows and arrows, spears, basket traps, wicker weirs and digging sticks were part of their tool assemblage.

Reed pipes, flutes, and drums were sources of music; gambling, dancing and chanting medicine songs were common activities. Conical tipis covered with elk hide and sweat lodges were typical structures at their encampments, as well as drying racks and earth ovens.

Kootenai Falls in Montana was a sacred place for the Kootenai, who believed a creator spirit named Quilxka Nupita placed them on earth to be guardians of the earth. They worshiped the sun and believed in reincarnation. Tribal dance ceremonies on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille paid homage to the sun in accordance with a belief that the dead resided in the sun and that departed Kootenai would one day return to the shores of Lake Pend Oreille to join the Kootenai then living.

The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho maintains a reservation near Bonners Ferry. Their social structure and activities were greatly disrupted with the advent of the fur trade and influx of settlers. In 1974, when they numbered only 67, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho declared war on the United States Government as a last recourse for survival. This “peaceful war” brought results. Since then their numbers have increased, corresponding with improvement of their reservation living situation, economic boosts such as fish hatcheries, and more public awareness of their plight. The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho is at the center of efforts to recover the endangered white sturgeon of the Kootenai River.

Learn more about the Kootenai today.