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Contact: Fur Traders

"We took from them furrs of no use to them and which had to pass through an immense distance of freight and risques before they could be sold in the markets of London."

David Thompson, July 1811.

Kalispels in a typical birch bark canoe.  Teakle Collection, Northwest Room, Spokane Public Library (PH84.270)

    Explorer and fur trader with the North West Company, David Thompson was the first white to record a meeting with the Kalispel, Indians he called "Saleesh" in his journal.  Thompson built a trading post, Kullyspel House, on the east shore of Lake Pend Oreille in 1809.  During the fur trade era, which lasted from about the 1780s to the late 1840s, Kalispels trapped beaver to trade at Kullyspel House and other nearby posts for manufactured goods.  Trading posts also hired Kalispel to care for horses and to move their employees and goods along the Pend Oreille River in native bark canoes like the one pictured above. 

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