PARKS -- The Friends of Spokane House re-enactors will present a weekend of local fur trade history from the years 1810 through1826 at the 2015 Fur Trade Symposium and Encampment June 13-14 in Riverside State Park.
The free event takes place 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on June 13 and from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on June 14 at the Spokane House Interpretive Center, 13501 N. Nine Mile Rd, Nine Mile Falls, WA. ( Click here for directions.)
Visit the Spokane Interpretive Center and talk with traders, voyageurs, trappers and Native American “Daughters of the Country” at their campsites where trade items, guns, tools, furs and equipment can be viewed.
The re-enactors will be in authentic leather and hand-stitched clothing. Demonstrations will feature flint and steel firestarting, flintlock shooting and a cannon salute.
Saturday afternoon activities include a symposium covering topics such as Spokane Tribal History, Women of the Fur Trade, Fur Trade Music and Spokane House History.
Saturday is a “free day” at the park in recognition of National Get Outdoors Day; the Discover Pass will not be required.
However, the Discover Pass will be required for motor vehicle entrance to Sunday’s event. A day pass is $10 and the annual Discover Pass is $30.
About the Spokane House
Spokane House, located at Riverside State Park, was built in 1810 by Jaco Finlay at the request of David Thompson, a fur trader with the Northwest Company. The present site of the Spokane House Interpretive Center is at the original location of the old post. The Spokane House offered a convenient and safe site for local and regional tribal trading partners. Besides working with Spokane, Kootenai, Pend Oreille, Flathead and Coeur d'Alene tribes, Finlay also employed many displaced Iroquois Indians who were French speakers from their alliance with the French during the French and Indian Wars. The Iroquois introduced the French place names in the region.
Later, when Thompson's Kullyspell House on Lake Pend Oreille was abandoned, Spokane House took on major importance as a fur trading center. During the early1800s, there was bitter competition between the Northwest Company, the Hudson's Bay Company belonging to the British and the American John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company based in what is now Astoria, Oregon.
