The Coeur d’Alene Tribe has purchased nearly 43,000 acres of timberland from Portland, Oregon-based Stimson Lumber Co. over the past two years, restoring land lost within the Coeur d’Alene Reservation during the late 1800s. 

The tribe’s modern land-buyback campaign represents the culmination of generations of political, financial, and institutional groundwork aimed at restoring tribal control over ancestral lands lost through federal allotment policies and private development, says Gene James, vice chairman of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe Tribal Council and Fish and Wildlife program manager. The recent purchase, completed in February, is part of a broader, aggressive buyback effort over the last 15 years in which the tribe has acquired nearly 90,000 acres of land. 

“This is the fruit of 125 years of work,” James says. “I’ve been heavily involved in the (repurchase), but I only get to do this because throughout the 20th century, our leaders put us in the position we are in now. Their job was to build that tribal infrastructure, and that political capital, and that financial capital, so that we could do what we are doing right now.”

James declines to disclose the purchase price of the land but says the Coeur d’Alene Tribe purchased the land with 100% tribal funds. The tribe generates revenue through a diversified portfolio of assets that includes tribal farms, gaming, and other investments, James says.

All 42,750 acres sold to the tribe are south of Coeur d’Alene and within the Panhandle Region’s Game Units 3, 4, 5, and 6, and have been removed from the Large Tracts program, making them no longer accessible to the public, he says. The Large Tracts program is a partnership between the Idaho Department of Fish & Game and private corporate timber companies to open land up for hunting, fishing, and general outdoor recreation without requiring approval or special fees.

Restoring lost land is a movement happening regionally and across the country, James says. Regionally, the Spokane Tribe of Indians and the Kalispel Tribe of Indians have taken major steps in recent years to reacquire lost land. Earlier this month, the Kalispel Tribe was awarded 280 acres of wildlife habitat, as part of an 885-acre commitment, according to a press release from Inland Northwest Land Conservancy. 

“It’s not just a regional thing, it’s a national thing throughout Indian Country,” James says. “There isn’t a Native nation or Native individual that I’ve ever met that didn’t have their identity tied to the land.”

The Coeur d’Alene Tribal territories historically encompassed nearly five million acres, including areas of North Idaho, western Montana, and Eastern Washington, James says. The reservation was reduced to 345,000 acres after congressional ratification in 1873. The Coeur d’Alene Reservation boundaries currently span from Palouse farm country to the western edge of the Northern Rocky Mountains.

Through the Dawes Act, tribal land was broken up into allotments to push tribes toward Western individual land ownership and farming, James says. Additionally, the federal government sold off large portions of the tribe's land without its consent. The combined actions resulted in a noncontinuous sprawl of land owned by the tribe described as a “checkerboard,” he says. Of the 345,000 acres, the tribe owns roughly 159,000 acres, he says.