Kalispel

Kalispel homelands extended through the Clark Fork and Pend Oreille river-and-lake country, linking communities across what became Montana, Idaho and Washington. Their territory included Priest Lake and Lake Pend Oreille and continued down the Pend Oreille River towards Canada. Waterways gave this extensive homeland its practical connections.

In 1809 the North West Company established Kullyspell House beside Lake Pend Oreille. David Thompson then explored the river flowing west from the lake, travelling with a voyageur and a Kalispel boy. Local people supplied knowledge of a river whose falls and rapids could obstruct onward movement. Thompson returned in 1810, but Metaline Falls prevented him from reaching the Columbia by that route. He visited Kalispel communities again in 1811. These encounters brought fur traders into an existing Indigenous landscape, where their travel depended on local guidance and the possibilities offered by particular stretches of water.