Native American scouts were widely used by the US Army beginning with the Revolutionary War. Indian scouts helped the military navigate through unfamiliar terrain and cultures. These native men, however, served for reasons of their own, and often resisted both military discipline and attempts to change their culture.

Like most Army posts on the western frontier, Fort Spokane relied on native scouts. Indian scouts interpreted, guided soldiers through the wilderness of eastern Washington, and brought back vital intelligence to the Army.

At Fort Spokane, being an Indian scout was at first not a permanent military role, but more of an auxiliary unit. From 1884 to 1886, native scouts agreed to serve for six months. Five to ten scouts were on hand at any given time. The men would bring their families to live with them in tents just outside the fort. The scouts wore their traditional attire, as they were not formally enlisted men in the Army.

In 1891, an army inspector reported that there were ten Indian scouts at Fort Spokane, by then wearing regulation uniform. "They were remarkably neat," he observed, "and the saddle requirements and horses were in very good order." Their tents were pitched in "regular order" and "the grounds around are very well policed." He concluded: "I was impressed with the soldierly appearance of these Indians."

Later that year, General John Gibbon decided to professionalize the Indian scouts, who would now be treated as regular soldiers. Natives that did enlist into the Army at Fort Spokane were appointed to Company I (which stood for "Indian"). They received supplies, a salary, schooling from officers’ wives, and uniforms. It was believed that enlisting American Indians as regular soldiers would both ease the chronic manpower shortage of the Army and help "civilize" the native soldiers.

The effort was not a success. By 1893 a mere twelve Spokanes and five Colvilles were enlisted. The natives were disappointed with the lack of military action and the constant drilling and formal parades. They complained that their uniforms were “too tight” and “prevented circulation of air about their persons.” An article in the Spokesman-Review claimed that "one company commander gave the the men permission to remedy this defect as they saw best. The next morning they showed up on parade with the seat of their trousers cut out."

The monotony and rigid discipline of military service in the American West was felt by white officers and enlisted men as well. But unlike the white soldiers, the native soldiers were in their own homeland, and found it easy to desert the post and return to their villages. The officer corps at Fort Spokane disliked the use of natives for this very reason, and also for their continued insistence of bringing their wives and families to live with them at the fort.

On August 2, 1893 by special order, Company I was disbanded due to desertions and poor recruiting efforts. Major General George Crook summed up the failure from the white point of view: “An Indian fighting as an Indian is an effective soldier; as a member of a civilized army he is useless.” The Spokesman was more diplomatic, declaring that "the Indians were as brave as any troops ever enlisted," but "could not be made soldiers of the modern type."

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Every spring, many of the meadows of the eastern Washington and northern Idaho are dotted with the blue flowers of the camas plant, cammasia quamash. To the Native peoples of the Columbia Plateau these flowers indicated food, marking the nutritious root bulbs that were the staff of life.

For thousands of years camas and other roots made up approximately 50% of the Native diet. Indians in this area did not practice agriculture in the European style; the fish and roots that nature provided were food enough.

Camas digging and cooking were the honored work for Native women. Women would gather root with digging sticks made of fire hardened wood, or deer antler. Sticks were long, and a perpendicular handle allowed the women to dig out the roots more easily. Up to 50 pounds of camas could easily be harvested in this manner in a day.

Harvesting camas required perfect timing. Camas root reaches its biggest size when the flowers have just withered in mid-June. To maximize it as a food source the women had to be in the fields to harvest at this time. Plant knowledge was required, because another type of camas, called death camas, which is far less nutritious was often growing along side the healthier version.

Regular digging of camas actually improved camas patches. The women would only keep the larger roots, returning the smaller roots back to the soil to ensure next year's harvest. Fire, in the shape of spring or fall "cool burns," was also used to ensure that that the open meadows required for camas growth stayed that way.

Camas bulbs need to be cooked to make the carbohydrates more digestible. Cooking was usually done in a pit oven. For long-term storage camas in baked again and made into loaves, a staple item of trade on the Plateau.

Camas harvests decreased with the arrival of the white farmers. Hungry pigs rooted up camas patches that had been nurtured for generations, while others were destroyed by the plow. As Natives were forced onto reservations they had to adopt much of the diet of the invaders, many native foodstuffs were replaced by the "white devils" of flour, sugar, and salt. The harvest of camas never completely stopped however, and today a revival of native food ways is causing an increase in camas in the diet of many native families.

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For thousands of years, American Indians gathered here at the base of Spokane Falls to fish for salmon. In June of each year, giant 60 to 80 pound Chinook would make it to the Spokane River. Though the falls were in Spokane Indian Territory, this was a shared bounty, and tribes from all over the Columbia Plateau would make their way to Spokane. In fact, when Lewis and Clark came through Nez Perce country, hundreds miles south of Spokane in 1805, they asked about where all the Nez Perce were? They were told that most of the Nez Perce were on the Spokane River fishing.

The Natives in the region used many methods to take the salmon. One method used by the Natives at the Spokane Falls was fishing from platforms above the falls. There they would stand and spear these giants. Another fishing method used by Natives on the Spokane was fish traps. A barrier made out of wood and other natural materials would be strung across tributaries of the Spokane. The barriers would trap the fish. Then they would be speared. Thousands of fish would be captured in this way.

The massive gathering of people required elaborate social organization. Chiefs were chosen from among those gathered. One of the most important was the Salmon Chief, often coming from the local Spokane Tribe. He was in charge of fishing and distributing the salmon fairly to all the people there.

The men did the fishing, and the women had the vital task of processing the salmon for the year. Processing was labor intensive, and required great skill, especially in the drying and smoking process. They had to ensure the salmon did not rot, and lasted through the hard winter months otherwise people would starve.

When Europeans had formed the town of Spokane; the early settlers relied heavily on the chinook for food and business. Spokane even became a tourist destination due to these giant Chinook. When Spokane's lumber industry expanded with the resulting wood chips and other pollutants were dumped into the river the by lumber mills people complained, wanting them to stop because they were killing the salmon.

The behemoth Chinooks stopped coming up the river to the Spokane Falls with the building of the dam on Long Lake in 1915. Below the dam salmon still came, but that stopped completely in 1939 with the building of one of the largest dams in the world, Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River.

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