16.2 Hand Event Prospect

When gold was discovered in the East Kootenays of British Columbia in 1863, thousands of prospectors from all over the West surged northward over a route that became known as the Wildhorse Trail. Edwin Bonner, a merchant from Walla Walla, Washington, established a ferry in 1864 where the trail crossed the broad Kootenai River. In 1875, Richard Fry, and his Sinixt wife, Justine Su-steel Fry, leased the business, but the location retained the name of the original founder and later became the town of Bonners Ferry. Before the gold rush, only a few visitors had come to the region; one of the first was explorer David Thompson, a cartographer for the North West Company. Thompson and four fellow fur traders arrived in 1808 to trade with the Lower Kootenais.