Kettle Falls was an ancient and important salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...

 fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

 site on the upper reaches of the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

, in what is today the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Washington, near the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 border. The falls consisted of a series of rapids and cascades where the river passed through quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

 rocks deposited by prehistoric floods

Missoula Floods

The Missoula Floods refer to the cataclysmic floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. The glacial flood events have been researched since the 1920s...

 on a substrate of Columbia River basalt

Columbia River Basalt Group

The Columbia River Basalt Group is a large igneous province that lies across parts of the Western United States. It is found in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and California...

. The river dropped nearly 50 feet (15 m), and the sound of the falls could be heard for miles away. Kettle Falls was inundated in 1940, as the waters of the reservoir Lake Roosevelt rose behind Grand Coulee Dam

Grand Coulee Dam

Grand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. It was constructed between 1933 and 1942, originally with two power plants. A third power station was completed in 1974 to increase its energy...

, permanently flooding the site.

History

About nine thousand years ago Paleo-Indian cultures first gathered at Kettle Falls to fish and gather foods. Salish speaking people arrived about two thousand years ago, and gradually the falls became the center of an extensive network of Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 trade based on a salmon economy. Native peoples came from coastal areas in the west and from the Great Plains

Great Plains

The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...

 in the east to fish, trade, and socialize with the bands of the Columbia River Plateau

Columbia River Plateau

The Columbia Plateau is a geologic and geographic region that lies across parts of the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It is a wide flood basalt plateau between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, cut through by the Columbia River...

. Up to fourteen tribes met regularly at Kettle Falls during the salmon spawning

Spawn (biology)

Spawn refers to the eggs and sperm released or deposited, usually into water, by aquatic animals. As a verb, spawn refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, also called spawning...

 season from June to October. They stood on rocks near the shore or on Indian Island in the middle of the falls, fishing with spears and distinctive J-shaped baskets. In his memoir White Grizzly Bear's Legacy: Learning to be Indian, Lawney Reyes

Lawney Reyes

Lawney L. Reyes is an American Indian artist, curator and memoirist.-Life:Reyes' mother, born Mary Christian, was Sin Aikst ; his father, Julian Reyes, was Filipino, but had largely assimilated to an Indian way...

 described the cultural and economic significance of the falls for his people, the Sinixt

Sinixt

The Sinixt are a First Nations People...

, and explained the role of subsistence fishing in maintaining salmon populations: "The bands moved to the banks of the river and caught the salmon that were not strong enough to clear the falls. This method of fishing made sure that only the strongest fish went on to spawn."

The Canadian mapmaker and explorer David Thompson

David Thompson (explorer)

David Thompson was an English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer"...

 was the first white person to describe the upper portion of the Columbia River. He arrived at Kettle Falls on June 19, 1811, naming it Ilth koy ape, a local name for the baskets the native peoples used to catch fish. Thompson spent two weeks at the falls, preparing for his journey downriver and observing the native fishing culture. He described the village area as "a kind of general rendezvous for news, trade, and settling disputes, in which these villagers acted as arbitrators, never joining any war party". The fur trade

Fur trade

The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...

rs of the Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

 established a presence at nearby Fort Colville

Fort Colville

The trade center Fort Colville was built by the Hudson's Bay Company at Kettle Falls on the Columbia River, a few miles west of the present site of Colville, Washington in 1825, to replace Spokane House as a regional trading center, as the latter was deemed to be too far from the Columbia River...

 in 1825. The Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean De Smet

Pierre-Jean De Smet

Pierre-Jean De Smet , also known as Pieter-Jan De Smet, was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus , active in missionary work among the Native Americans of the Midwestern United States in the mid-19th century.His extensive travels as a missionary were said to total...

 visited the area in 1841 and found native people catching up to 3,000 fish a day. The Jesuits established St. Paul's Mission

St. Paul's Mission

St. Paul's Mission was a Jesuit mission church established in the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia District, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, in the 1830s. The mission was built near the HBC's Fort Colville, on the bluff then overlooking Kettle Falls on the Columbia River...

 at the falls in 1845. The original town of Kettle Falls was established in 1891 by speculators from Spokane

Spokane, Washington

Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

. They built a large hotel on the river overlooking the falls and envisioned a glamorous resort town, but the railroad bypassed the settlement, and the resort never grew much larger than 300 residents.

Flooded by Grand Coulee Dam

Kettle Falls was flooded in 1940, when the Grand Coulee Dam

Grand Coulee Dam

Grand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. It was constructed between 1933 and 1942, originally with two power plants. A third power station was completed in 1974 to increase its energy...

 impounded the Columbia River to create Lake Roosevelt. The waters behind the dam rose 380 feet, flooding more than 21000 acres (85 km²) of prime bottomland along the river where native peoples lived, as well as the original town of Kettle Falls. In June 1940, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people mourned the falls at a "Ceremony of Tears" organized by the Colvilles

Colville (tribe)

The Colville tribe is a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest. The name Colville comes from association with Fort Colville, named after Andrew Colvile of the Hudson's Bay Company...

 and attended by representatives of the Yakama

Yakama

The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, or simply Yakama Nation , is a Native American group with nearly 10,000 enrolled members, living in Washington. Their reservation, along the Yakima River, covers an area of approximately 1.2 million acres...

, Spokane

Spokane (tribe)

The Spokane are a Native American people in the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of Washington. The Spokane Indian Reservation, at , is located in eastern Washington, almost entirely in Stevens County, but includes two very small parcels of land and part of the Spokane River in...

, Nez Perce, Flathead

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation are the Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreilles Tribes. The Flatheads lived between the Cascade Mountains and Rocky Mountains. The Salish initially lived entirely east of the Continental Divide but established their...

, Blackfeet

Blackfeet

The Piegan Blackfeet are a tribe of Native Americans of the Algonquian language family based in Montana, having lived in this area since around 6,500 BC. Many members of the tribe live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centered in Browning...

, Coeur d'Alene

Coeur d'Alene Tribe

The Coeur d'Alene are a Native American people who lived in villages along the Coeur d'Alene, St. Joe, Clark Fork and Spokane Rivers; as well as sites on the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene, Lake Pend Oreille and Hayden Lake, in what is now northern Idaho, eastern Washington and western Montana.In...

, Tulalip

Tulalip

Tulalip is a group of Native American peoples from western Washington state in the United States. Today they are federally recognized as the Tulalip Tribes of the Tulalip Reservation.- History :...

, and Pend d'Oreille

Pend d'Oreilles (tribe)

The Pend d'Oreilles, also known as the Kalispel, are a tribe of Native Americans who lived around Lake Pend Oreille, as well as the Pend Oreille River, and Priest Lake although some of them live spread throughout Montana and eastern Washington...

 tribes.

Native burial grounds on Indian Island were moved, and the town of Kettle Falls was relocated to the present site of Kettle Falls, Washington

Kettle Falls, Washington

Kettle Falls is a city in Stevens County, Washington, United States, named for the nearby Kettle Falls on the Columbia River, an ancient and important fishing site for Native Americans...

. In addition to submerging the falls, Grand Coulee permanently blocked anadromous fish from traveling upriver, ending salmon and steelhead migration in the upper Columbia River Basin. As with the flooding of Priest Rapids

Priest Rapids

Priest Rapids was a narrow, fast-flowing stretch of the Columbia River, located in the central region of the U.S. state of Washington. It was flooded by the construction of the Priest Rapids Dam in the 1950s....

, Celilo Falls

Celilo Falls

Celilo Falls was a tribal fishing area on the Columbia River, just east of the Cascade Mountains, on what is today the border between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington...

, and Cascades Rapids

Cascades Rapids

The Cascades Rapids were an area of rapids along North America's Columbia River, between the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. Through a stretch approximately wide, the river dropped about in .-Boat portage:Boat travelers were forced to either portage boats and supplies or pull boats up with...

 downriver, the loss of Kettle Falls ended the traditional way of life for the native cultures that revolved around salmon fishing. Many native people moved out of the area, but others live today on the nearby Spokane and Colville Indian Reservation

Colville Indian Reservation

The Colville Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in the north-central part of the U.S. state of Washington, inhabited and managed by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which is recognized by the United States of America as an American Indian Tribe...

s. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation filed a lawsuit against the United States government, which was settled in the 1990s for approximately $52 million.