Kootenai Tribe's war against U.S. topic of film

Thirty-four years ago, the Kootenai Tribe in Boundary County declared war on the United States.

The tribe’s story on how they fought the federal government for basic human rights is part of a documentary film that’s nearly two years in the making.

On Friday, director Sonya Rosario and her crew shot a powwow at the Kootenai River Inn. It was given in honor of the key players, including Amy Trice, chairwoman of the tribe who declared war on Sept. 19, 1974.

Others who played a role in the uprising and attended the powwow were former Idaho U.S. Sen. James McClure, former Idaho Congressman and U.S. Sen. Steven Symms, former U.S. National Forest Service District Ranger Bob Graham and former Bureau of Indian Affairs representative Martin Seneca.

Trice told the Herald about how the Kootenai River Inn came to be as a result of the declaration.

“There was no casino,” the 72-year-old said. “We said we would put in a motel and a gaming casino. It has helped a lot of people. Buses come here with people, who eat and stay here.”

Today, the Kootenai River Inn is one of Bonners Ferry’s largest private employers with a workforce of 170.

The documentary will profile Trice and the 67 Idaho Kootenai in Bonners Ferry at the time. Robbed of their lands, culture and way of life, they moved from place to place within Bonners Ferry, Rosario said.

“The Kootenai people, now nomads in their own homeland, faced the danger of extinction in Idaho,” she said. “Homes given in the early 1930s by the federal government now lay decaying under the blue skies of Idaho, providing minimal shelter with broken windows and holes in the roof.”

The declaration of war worked.

“We have built homes, a clinic that serves all of Boundary County and a hatchery,” Trice said.

PBS is interested in airing the one-hour documentary, which Rosario hopes to have completed by August. Filming also has been done at the hatchery, reservation and medical clinic.