Hudson Bay Company (HBC) agent Joseph Howse built a trading post just north of here in 1810, the first European settlement in the valley north of Flathead Lake. Described as "adventurous, tough, and intelligent," Howse joined the venerable HBC in 1795 and worked his way up through the ranks. In 1810, his employers ordered him to explore the remote country west of the Rocky Mountains to determine its potential for harvesting beaver pelts. Secondary tasks involved monitoring the activities of the rival North West Company's David Thompson in the area and the Americans east of the Continental Divide. The expedition left NBC's Edmonton House in today's Canada in June 1810 and arrived in this area by autumn of that year. Howse led the first HBC expedition to cross the Rocky Mountains into what is now northwest Montana. He built a small trading post, called Howse House, near the junction of two aboriginal trails to trade with the Salish and Kootenai Indians. The exact location of the post remains a mystery, but scholars have narrowed its location to somewhere south of Kalispell near Ashley Creek. The trading post was open for less than a year before Blackfeet Indian threats forced Howse and his party to return to Canada. Eventually the HBC returned to western Montana, conducting a lively trade with Salish and Kootenai Indians from
Fort Connah until 1871.
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