Hudson Bay Fort Colvile

  David Thompson was the first official representative of the Northwest Company and of any fur trading company to arrive at Kettle Falls. On June 19th, 1811, 6 years after Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Columbia, David Thompson arrived here and proceeded to build a canoe.  Two weeks later, he set out with 7 men in that canoe traveling 700 miles to Fort Vancouver in 12 days and fulfilled a life-long quest to find a river route to the ocean and thus a trade route to China.  China greatly prized furs from the Northwest and traded them for porcelain products which fetched a high price in England.
  A few years later the Northwest Company and the Hudson Bay Company merged.  In 1826 Hudson Bay decided to build a "factory" as they called their operation centers at Kettle Falls, just north of the peninsula where the museum stands.  They built it on the broad plane that is now beneath the waters of the bay.  This one grew wheat, potatoes, meat and other crops that supplied all of their outposts east of the Rockies.  It collected furs from those posts and shipped them down the Columbia in large canoes that were built here, thus becoming a key location in world trade.
  Soon after the international boundary agreement was signed in 1846, the Hudson Bay Company began moving it's operations north to Fort Sheppard, just across the 49th parallel in Canada and eventually to the coast.  The boundary was not surveyed until 1862 and eventually this fort was abandoned.
  You can view the site with interpretation that shows how the fort was arranged from at trail that starts at the east side of St Paul's Mission and winds around to overlook Hayes Island and the location of the falls.