Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 25 them well fed. There were the regular runs to the various Indian encampments to trade mainly for furs, but also occasionally for food and horses. Sometimes, food and horses were the same. His schedule allowed little time for "going on discovery", as he called his explorations, but Thompson made use of what time he could find to get out and survey the area around his Saleesh House. He made forays over to the St. Regis area, as well as the Missoula valley, where he comment- ed that he could see the "road" taken by Lewis and Clark. He also recorded a visit to an overlook for Flathead Lake southwest of Polson. Trading may have been his job but exploring and map making were his passions. Spring signaled the end of the trading season and time to get their product to market. The jour- ney back to their bases in Canada was grueling. Their canoes were designed to carry approxi- mately 3,000 pounds of furs, four men, their gear and some provisions for the trip. By the time they left, the rivers were dangerously swollen with the spring runoff, sometimes rising two feet in a single day. There were rapids and falls along the way necessi- tating unloading each canoe for a portage and reloading. Each man would repeatedly carry up to 200 pounds over slippery shale portage trails. By land, the horses would often come to streams too high to cross. Again, the whole cargo needed to be unloaded and reloaded. In the end, it was greater than a 4,000-mile, mostly man-powered run to get his furs from Saleesh House, north over the Canadian Rockies, down to the west end of Lake Superior and from there, through the Great Lakes, down the St Lawrence River to Montreal for shipment to Europe. The effort that it took to get those Montana furs to market is staggering. On the morning of Friday, March 13th, 1812, Thompson and his crew pushed their canoes into the river at Saleesh House to begin their long trip north and back over the mountains. He would never return. Saleesh House stayed in operation until the mid-1820s, a little after the Hudson's Bay Company's takeover of the North West Company in 1821. Later, the trading post was moved east a couple of times, until finally it was located north of the town of Saint Ignatius in 1847. Known as Fort Connah, this was the last Hudson's Bay trading post to operate in the US, operating as late as 1872. After returning for the last time from his travels, Thompson moved to the Montreal area in late 1812. He would never again cross over the moun- tains to the west. By 1814 he had put all his notes and maps and sketches into one large, "great map" that covered from Hudson Bay to the mouth of the Columbia River. It measured a full 6 by 10 feet and it remained the most accurate map of western North America for well over 50 years. The landscape of western Montana has cer- tainly changed over the years since David Thompson roamed our countryside here. There has been considerable development with farms, houses, dams, etc. However, one can drive Highway 200 along the "Saleesh River" today and almost see how it must have been a little over 200 years ago with Thompson's canoes and pack trains going back and forth through the wilderness between Saleesh House and the Indian encampments to the east. It was a time when life was hard for all and European fur traders and Native Americans worked together to the benefit of the other. I'd like to think that 200 years later, the spirit of Koo Koo Sint still "haunts" this corner of Montana. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The author wishes to acknowl- edge and thank the generous assistance from Carl and Linda Haywood of Thompson Falls. The Haywoods have been tirelessly and passionately reconstructing David Thompson's time in the West, and in particular, Montana. Through a thorough re-examination of Thompson's own journals and narrative, they have uncovered details that others have missed or misinterpreted. Carl has chronicled David Thompson's time in Montana in his book Sometimes Only Horses to Eat, Stoneydale Press Publishing Co., Stevensville, Montana (2008). He actively updates David Thomp- son information on his web site: www.rockmanstradingpost.com WALL OF BUGS • CRYSTALS • SAPPHIRE JEWELRY MONTANA FOSSILS • GOLD PANS • ECLECTIC GIFTS 25 North Willson Avenue (406) 586-3451 EarthsTreasuresMT.com EARTH'S TREASURES VISIT EST. 1989 DOWNTOWN BOZEMAN'S FOSSIL AND MINERAL MUSEUM GALLERY ONE OF A KIND IS WHAT WE DO BEST EXPERIENCE Enter our contest to win a genuine Earth's Treasure at distinctlymontana.com/earth

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