Eller program at museum cancelled

August 30, 2022

The Idaho Panhandle region, including culturally-related adjacent areas in Montana, Washington state, and southeast British Columbia, was one of the last regions of the United States to be developed. The area has been the homeland of Natives for over 10,000 years, while non-Natives did not arrive until fur trappers from Montreal under John Thompson came into the area in 1807.

Trappers were followed by Jesuit missionaries in the late 1830s, but not until gold strikes were made in the early 1860s did appreciable numbers of non-Natives enter the area. Railroads came in the 1880s, followed by large-scale mining and logging, vastly accelerating the development of the region.

The people who developed the Idaho Panhandle region recorded their history in part through their stories, songs, and poems. The Idaho Songs Project’s nineteenth CD/booklet project, Songs and Poems of the Early Idaho Panhandle Region, preserves some of this heritage in its 114-page book and CD with 37 audio tracks by musician, author, and folklorist P. Gary Eller.

Eller will highlight selections from the CD/booklet project in a free public program at 1:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon, September 17, in Portrait Hall at the Boundary County Museum, 7229 Main Street, Bonners Ferry. Bring your instruments for a jam session with Gary after his program.