Kootenay

“ Where the water rushes around some rock or point of sand, where current struggles with current and a great swirl grows out of the conflict, there the rainbow-trout hold their town-meetings. We attended some of them and tried our uttermost to break them up. It was in a visit to one of these gatherings that the Junior made his bow to the inhabitants of the Kootenay waters. Behold the young man (not quite four years old) seated in the stern of the boat, rod firmly grasped, determination in his eye, while his aged sire works the oars. ”

“ News travels rapidly among the Indians and later events indicate that furs must have been brought to this winter camp from the Saleesh or Flathead country to the southeast, and from the region of Pend d'Oreille Lake to the southwest. About three years later, at a point a few miles further up the Kootenay River, but on the same side (nearly opposite Jennings, Montana) , the North-West Company erected a more permanent trading post, known as Fort Kootenay, in opposition to which, in 1812, the Pacific Fur Company built another fort near by. ”

“ The Columbia is one of the longest rivers in the world. After finally leaving the Selkirks, it still flows 800 miles to the ocean. Its relation to the Kootenay is a geographical phenomenon attracting the interest of all visitors to the upper Columbia Valley where both rivers have their sources. The Kootenay rises in a small lake on the western flank of the Rockies some miles south of the source of the Columbia, and the rivers, almost parallel during the first part of their journey, flow in opposite directions. An almost level plain, a mile and a quarter wide, separates them near Columbia Lake. ”

“ The Kootenays seldom, if ever, whip their children, and one of them said that he would rather die than see a white man chastise his offspring. At one of the stores in the Upper Kootenay country a little Indian boy was playing 'hide-and-seek' with a little white girl as blithely as might be. ”

“ The Kootenays are very fond of their children, the men much more so than is commonly believed, or even supposed. To see a man carrying a little child is by no means a rare sight. Among the Lower Kootenay in Idaho, the writer saw one of the older men of the tribe playing in right human fashion with his children. ”

“ Look at the maps and see how very few large rivers manage to flow to the westward against the terrific eastward trend of the earth's surface.
"At last," said Storm, "the Columbia finds a way round the norrard end of my Alps, and the Kootenay sneaks around the southern foothills. Each makes a hairpin bend. They've both got lost in the woods, so the Columbia flows due south, and the Kootenay due north. Here on the Kootenay is our herd camp, that's the bulrush swamps, and there's my trading post on the only bit of gravel which doesn't flood in summer. ”

“ Deep lay the snow in Kootenay. All across the prairies the great drifts were like ocean rollers frozen,—against the clumps of timber they were heaped like winter surf, around the cabin curled over to windward like a breaking wave. One could stand upon the comb of that wave, so solid was it; indeed, the Señora La Mancha had chosen the point of vantage from whence to search the trail for some sign of her husband's coming, because he was late afield after stray cattle, and it was long past supper time. ”

“ But in the Kootenay I traveled a bad trail, and a long trail, with a breed of the Northwest, who saw fit to die when the famine pinched. He had been to the Yukon by an unknown way over the mountains, and when he knew his time was near gave me the map and the secret of a place where he swore by his gods there was much gold.
'After that all the world began to flock into the north. I was a poor man; I sold myself to be a driver of dogs. The rest you know. I met him and her in Dawson. ”

“ They were on the old Kootenay Trail, for a hundred years and more the ancient pathway of barter and of war for the Indian tribes that hunted the western plains and the foothill country and brought their pelts to the coast by way of the Columbia River. Along the lower levels the old trail ran, avoiding, with the sure instinct of a skilled engineer, nature's obstacles, and taking full advantage of every sloping hillside and every open stretch of woods. ”

“ There, a short distance from Lake Windermere, they hewed logs of heavy fir and built a cabin which they strongly stockaded on three sides, the fourth resting on the steep bank of the river. This was Old Kootenay House, the first trading post erected by white men on the waters of the Columbia.
In this remote spot, the safety of all depended upon the courage and resource of the leader. Additional supplies were needed from Rocky Mountain House, and Finan McDonald was sent back across the mountains to fetch them. ”

“ The Pend d’Oreille is generally rated as the principal tributary of the upper Columbia. Although the Kootenay—because it flows through a region of considerably greater annual rainfall—carries rather the more water of the two, the Pend d’Oreille is longer and drains a far more extensive watershed—that lying between the main chain of the Rockies and the Bitter Root and Cœur d’Alene ranges. Great as is the [Pg 207] combined discharge of these two fine rivers, their effect on the Columbia is not apparent to the eye. ”

“ As for the money, it may seem a pile to you, but we don't think anything more of a thousand or so in the Kootenay than you Greenvale folks do of a fiver—not a bit more. We do things on a big scale out there. ”

“ THE Kootenay Indians, who number between five hundred and a thousand persons, inhabit a strip of country between the Rocky and the Selkirk Mountains, partly in the United States and partly in British Columbia. As a rule, their moral character and behavior are good, and they are honest, kind, and hospitable ”

“ We left Nelson by train for Castlegar, on the Columbia just below West Robson, the afternoon of October nineteenth. The track runs in sight of the Kootenay practically all of the way. There is a drop of three hundred and fifty feet in the twenty-eight miles of river between the outlet of the lake and the Columbia, with no considerable stretch that it would be safe to run with a boat. A large part of the drop occurs in two fine cataracts called Bonnington Falls, where there is an important hydro-electric plant, serving Nelson and Trail with power ”

“ As a consequence of recent geological study, it has been definitely established that the divide between the Columbia and Kootenay rivers, now at Canal Flats, was originally a hundred and fifty miles farther north, or approximately where Donald Canyon occurs. That is to say, a great wall of rock at the latter point backed up a long, narrow lake between the Rockies on the east and the Selkirks on the west. This lake, unable to find outlet to the north, had risen until its [Pg 84] waters were sufficiently above the lower southern barriers to give it drainage in that direction. ”

“ A recent estimate gives the area of known cultivable land at twenty-four million acres, of which about ten millions is in the Peace River country, but hardly one-eighth of this land is at present in use, and much of the interior of the country is practically unexplored. There are districts in the Kootenay, about the Okanagan lake, in the neighbourhood of New Westminster, upon Vancouver island and in some other regions, which are fairly well settled, and in these is grown a vast quantity of beautiful apples and other fruit. ”

“ Among the most striking features of the interior of British Columbia are the Selkirk and Purcell ranges, which wheel round the northern end of Lake Kootenay, and stretch some distance down its eastern side. The lofty, rugged, sharp-cut peaks of these ranges "receive and break most of the heavy rain-clouds which blow in from the Pacific. There is therefore more rain and more snow, and consequently the soil receives more moisture, and the growth of forest and farm is more dense. ”

“ British Columbia in its valleys is a land of farms. It raises its own famous apples around its lakes, as Nova Scotia brings Bellefleurs and other{220} beauties to perfection, round the Bay of Fundy. Okanagan, Arrowhead, Kootenay, all have their ranches with their acres of meadow, bench-lands and climbing fields. And here, on these Ranches beside the Lake, backed by mountains from whose peaks the snow never melts, are perched the homes of the ranchers. ”

“ Their former range was British Columbia, along the Kootenay lake and river. They were always friendly to the whites and noted for their honesty. In 1904 there were some 550 in British Columbia; and in 1908 there were 606 on the Flathead Agency, Montana.
KUTTALAM, or Courtallum, a sanatorium of southern India, in the Tinnevelly district of Madras; pop. (1901) , 1197. Though situated only 450 ft. above sea-level, it possesses the climate of a much higher elevation, owing to the breezes that reach it through a gap in the Ghats. ”

“ Looking back, we saw the Kootenays move on through the meadow and disappear in the timber. Completely dazed by our great misfortune, we mechanically took our back trail, and seldom speaking, walked on and on. When night came, rain began to fall and the wind rose to a gale in the treetops. At that Pitamakan shook his head, and said, dejectedly, "At this season rain down here means snow up on top. We must make strong medicine if we are ever to see our people again." ”

“ Since that date this has been largely increased by the influx of miners and others, consequent upon the discovery of precious metals in the Kootenay, Boundary and Atlin districts. Much of this is a floating population, but the opening up of the valleys by railway and new lines of steamboats, together with the settlements made in the vicinity of the Canadian Pacific railway, has resulted in a considerable increase of the permanent population. The white population comprises men of many nationalities. ”

“ Some of the younger Indians are rather companionable with their horses, and it is worth noting that they have coined a few slang words, such as k'āddla, instead of k'kā́tlahā́atltsin, 'horse,' and mistak'ādla, 'colt.' The Kootenay name of the horse bears witness to its exotic origin, for it signifies literally 'elk-dog,' these Indians having had recourse to the aspect of these two animals already familiar to them, in order to assign a name to the new creature, the horse, introduced by the neighboring Indians directly or indirectly through the whites. ”

“ Along with McGillivray, he rode across to the Red Deer river, where he found a camp of Piegans. A short stay among them was enough to lull their suspicions; and Thompson was then able to ride twenty-two miles west to the foot of the mountains, where he expected to meet a band of Kootenays. These he found, twenty-six strong. With their women and children they had crossed the divide to meet the white traders. These Kootenays were the first of the British Columbia Indians whom Thompson had encountered. ”

“ This country is different from ours of the plains. There the snow comes and goes many times during the winter; here it only gets deeper and deeper, until the sun beats Cold-Maker, and comes north again."
I believed that to be true, for I remembered that my uncle had told me once that there were no chinook winds on the west side of the range. So I proposed what had been on my mind for some time: that we go to the camp of the Kootenays and beg them to give us shelter.
"If they didn't kill us, they would only beat us and drive us away. No, we cannot go to them," said Pitamakan decidedly. ”

“ 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 . ”

“ A great battle fought centuries ago between the Kootenays and the Blackfeet is recorded in aboriginal hieroglyphics of red pigment on an outstanding rock near the shore of the Columbia Lake, twenty miles south of Thompson's fort. An ancient footpath, the Spirit Trail of the Indians, leads beyond this and kindred pictured rocks, three miles away Near the trail are mounds built up of leaf mould and twigs, altars where to this day, the Indian passing along, lays a tiny branch, his offering to the Great Spirit. ”

“ 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 . ”

“ 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 . ”

“ 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 . ”