Sharing the Culture

it said many times, and it’s important to repeat: ‘We’re a tribe with a casino, not a casino with a tribe.’

“The sharing of culture comes from our hearts,” Penney adds.

“There are so many myths and misconceptions — even lies — of what our culture and our history was,” says Matt. “Who better to tell our history than us?”

“A lot of guests are coming from the East Coast, and they’ve never even seen a huckleberry,” says Dee Dee McGowan, who manages cultural tourism, tour bussing and sponsorships for the casino. “People always say this is such a beautiful area. We really roll out that red carpet for them. We are doing it because we love where we live.”

Guests who sign up for cultural tourism events can experience parts of the tribe’s history and present-day culture with traditional workshops making Pendleton moccasins, beaded necklaces and more. Watch cdacasino.com for cultural events as they are announced.

There are also cultural dinners with smoked huckleberry salmon, including storytelling and a cultural exhibition performance with song and drum. You can tour an aviary with eagles, hawks and owls that isn’t open to the general public. There are kayaking, canoeing, hiking, bike and boat tours on and around the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes and Heyburn State Park. You can visit the Old Cataldo Mission, where Coeur d’Alene tribal members met Catholic missionaries. You can hear the songs of legendary jazz singer Mildred Bailey, who was a Coeur d’Alene tribal member. Singer CeCe Cook recreates her music in the Mildred Bailey Room, telling stories of the barriers Bailey overcame. All are part of the growing cultural tourism program the tribe has fostered since 2018.

McGowan says the COVID-19 pandemic led to pent-up demand for vacations outside the normal casino experience people get in places like Las Vegas.

“People want to have an adventure,” says McGowan, “and a unique experience.” 

The history of a people is inextricably bound to their language. The words they use to describe their environment, their beliefs, their routines and themselves offer insight into the forces that have shaped their way of life and their identity.

For the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, this is as true as ever.

They call themselves Schitsu’umsh. The discovered ones. Those who are found here.

“One meaning is that other people discovered us living here, being a little fierce, a little ornery, very businesslike.”

Traders And Missionaries

Yet the history of the Coeur d’Alenes begins long before their contact with early white traders. The land that the explorers regarded as wilderness — roughly 3.5 million acres centered on today’s Idaho Panhandle region — had been home to the Tribe for more than 10,000 years, according to archaeological evidence, though oral history traces the origins much