INFLUENCES
The Columbia pathway introduced new human influences on a landscape that had seen very little change for a long time. Over five years (1807 -1811), Thompson and his men laid the foundations for the first enterprise which would tap the Columbia District's natural resources: the fur trade. Thompson combined the business interests of the North West Company with his own keen interest in his surroundings, and he left a legacy of discovery. His maps were second to none, and his dealings with the indigenous cultures that he encountered were respectful. After the company amalgamated with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, Thompson's pathway became a transcontinental highway for the annual Columbia Express brigades that carried company records, mail, and paying passengers.
Thus many travelers passed our doorstep, and most took notice of the confluence of the two rivers. Many documented a landscape that was changing as they were witnessing it: artist Paul Kane, botanist David Douglas, and the indefatigable Governor George Simpson, looking for greater efficiencies in company operations. Catholic missionaries also followed the great waterway to the west to set up missions and introduce a new faith. In October 1838, Fathers Blanchet and Demers baptized a local group of Sinixt at the Fort of the Lakes, and buried the 12 drowned victims who had perished two days earlier in Death Rapids. In 1846, Father De Smet struggled through a spring crossing of Athabasca Pass and stopped here, at the confluence of the rivers, to stake out the site for a mission.
The fur trade engaged the people of the First Nations to varying degrees and the work of the early missionaries was accepted. The next invasion was far less benign as it led to a permanent alteration of a previously boundless landscape. Prospectors, miners, and settlers followed in the footsteps of the earliest invaders, and their interests were based on the concept of land ownership. What had previously been an open territory, constrained only by tribal claim, was now turning into a country where more and more land was segregated as private. This led to inevitable conflicts, especially between native residents and miners. In 1861 Gold Commissioner W. Cox tried to diffuse the situation by calling a meeting between the disputing parties at the confluence of the great rivers.
From the sign