Missoula lecture traces Northern West from early explorers and fur trade to railroads

Presenter delivered a roughly 39‑minute public lecture in Missoula that traced the history of the "Northern West," the northern tier of states stretching from the Red River to the Strait of Georgia. The talk reviewed early European and American exploration, the 19th‑century fur trade, treaty-making with Indigenous nations, and the arrival of railroads that consolidated U.S. control of the region.

The speaker framed the talk as an exploration of an "occasional region," saying, "It's a pleasure to be in Missoula," and noting that, in his view, "the two garden spots in Washington territory...were the Bitterroot Valley and Whidbey Island." He defined the Northern West to include North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington and emphasized common threads such as…