It said that the Coeur d'Alene were the traditional owners and that the Executive Branch and Congress had clearly included this area in their reservation, with compensation for ceded territory.

This area was designated in 1983 by the Environmental Protection Agency as Bunker Hill Mine and Smelting Complex, the nation's second-largest Superfund site for cleanup.

Settlements were reached with major defendants in 2008 and 2011, providing funds to be used in removal of hazardous wastes and restoration of habitat and natural resources.

Historically the Coeur d'Alene occupied a territory of 3.5 million acres in present-day northern Idaho, eastern Washington and western Montana.

The name is first recorded by the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1805) and was later popularly said to have been given by French traders to one of the chiefs of the tribe noted for his stinginess.

[4] The alternative name Skitswish is recorded by Alexander Henry the younger in 1810 (as Skeetshue) and by George Gibbs in Pacific Railroad Report vol.

Then their economy was based on fishing, hunting, and plant gathering, with seasonal migratory patterns and retreating to clustered semi-subterranean dwellings during the winter months.

[8] The earliest written description of the Coeur d'Alene people comes from the journals of Alexander Henry the younger, a fur trader with the North West Company.

[9]Ross Cox, a clerk with the Pacific Fur Company and then the North West Company, spent considerable time at the trading post of Spokane House between 1812 and 1817: The Pointed Hearts, or as the [French] Canadians call them, les Coeurs d' Alênes (Hearts of Awls), are a small tribe inhabiting the shores of a lake about fifty miles to the eastward of Spokan House.

Although she might have born this in silence from one of her own tribe, she was not as equally forbearing with regard to a stranger, and immediately informed her husband of the outrage.

After the Indian defeat in the Skitswish War of May–September 1858, many more speculators were attracted after the discovery of silver in 1863 in the north Panhandle near the city of Coeur d'Alene.

The US agreement with the tribe "expressly included part of the St. Joe River (then called the St. Joseph), and all of Lake Coeur d'Alene except a sliver cut off by the northern boundary.

Due to extensive mining and smelting operations in the Panhandle during the 19th and 20th centuries, there was hazardous waste in water discharges and pollution in air emissions.

The mining industry "left several thousand acres of land and tributaries, connected to the Coeur d'Alene Basin, contaminated with heavy metals.

Members of the tribe reside in such area cities as DeSmet, Harrison, Parkline, Plummer, St. Maries (part on the reservation, population 734), Tensed, and Worley.

The peoples work together for mutual benefit, for instance, in applying for grants or negotiating with the state government on Native American affairs.

The tribe reorganized under a written constitution approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, United States Department of Interior, on September 2, 1949, and amended in 1961.

Born in 1972 in Spokane, Allan grew up in Idaho on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation and graduated from Eastern Washington University in Cheney.

In 1984 his niece, Jeanne Givens, was the first Native American woman to be elected to the Idaho state legislature, serving two terms.

In 2008, ASARCO LLC, reached a settlement of $452 million with the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and United States for the Bunker Hill site[17] after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

[13] In 2011 the government, the Coeur d'Alene, and the state of Idaho (which joined the suit that year) reached settlement with the Hecla Mining Company to resolve one of the largest cases ever filed under CERCLA, the Superfund statute.

"[13] The trustees intend to restore habitat for fish, birds and other natural resources, for stewardship while working for economic progress in the region.

[12] The tribe has worked with the US Department of Justice in filing suit also against the Union Pacific Railroad over contamination of the lake and related lands.