Fort Connah is likely the oldest standing building in Montana in the United States, but has an importance far beyond its age and architecture. It was one of the original “forts” constructed by the Hudson Bay Company to assist in the extraction of millions of furs from North America through trade with furtrappers and Native Americans. While called a fort, the building had no military value, and was not garrisoned - it was living accomodation and storage for the McDonald family who lived and ran the trading post.
I was determined to visit Fort Connah earlier this year following my reading of James Hunters’ book Glencoe and the Indians. While on a visit, when we had been shown around by very kind and friendly members of the Connah restoration society, I picked up this short book by Jeanne O’Neill and Riga Winthrop.
The book was published in 2002 when restoration of the Fort was still in the early stages. For those who know the history the book offers little new information. It is really a short introduction to the sigificance of Fort Connah to Montana’s history. As such it deservers a wider readership as I certainly felt that the site was little known, even to locals.
O’Neil and Winthrop locate their history very much in colonial development of the region. The fur industry, they write, “was just the beginning of a history of rape and plunder, of a cycle of boom and bust”. In fact the determining history of Fort Connah was not events on the ground, but wider economic and political contexts, which the authors do due justice too.
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| Fort Connah in May 2024 |
The book is short and typical of the peculiarly American local history publication that proliferates in locally in the States. It gives great insights into niche areas, normally only of interest to locals, and in the case of Fort Connah those with the surname McDonald. For, as Hunter’s work has shown, the influence of Scottish migrants on Flathead was significant. Angus McDonald who is buried near the Fort along with his Native American wife Catherine, where the head of a new tribe of locals who have come to play an important role in local history since the end of the 1800s. Angus was, it must be argued, not a genocidal immigrant and clearly, from this account at least, cared deeply for the indigenous people and their knowledge. O’Neill and Winthrop repeat accounts of him telling Native American history while sharing a drink with visitors. Angus’ life - from Scotland to fur-trapper, Fort manager and then cattle farmer - forms the backbone to this story. But the book does cover more. SOme of this is a little peripheral, but adds to the flavour.
This book is perhaps somewhat specialised, but ought to be read by those heading to Flathead for their holidays. It is an good general introduction to a history of the area that deserves to be better known and would help ensure that Fort Connah and it’s intriguing history is preserved even further.
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