Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Spokane Falls and its surroundings were a gathering place and focus for settlement for the area's indigenous people due to the fertile hunting grounds and abundance of salmon in the Spokane River. The Inland Northwest was first explored by Canadian explorer-geographer David Thompson, working as head of the North West Company's Columbia Department. At the nexus of the Little Spokane and the Spokane, Thompson's men built a new fur trading post, which is the first long-term European settlement in Washington state.