Fort Colvile: Washington’s once-prolific 200-year-old fur trading post you may have never even heard of

KETTLE FALLS – Beneath the glassy waters of Lake Roosevelt lie the remnants of the second-most important fur trading post in the Pacific Northwest.

About 20 years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition traversed the Columbia River, the Hudson’s Bay Company made its way to the Inland Northwest and established Fort Colvile , a third of a mile from Kettle Falls. Back then, the falls were a mecca for Indigenous tribes in the area and so full of fish that early written records said one couldn’t throw a stick in the water without hitting a salmon.

Built 200 years ago as of this year, Fort Colvile was in a lucrative location, where trappers traded thousands of beaver and muskrat pelts each year until the post closed in 1871.

Much of the fort’s history was washed away when the Lake Roosevelt rese