In the last 25 years Northern Quest Resort and Casino in Airway Heights has added hundreds of thousands of square feet of hotel and event space while at the same time supporting members of the Kalispel Tribe, lifting them from poverty and giving them opportunities.
“We didn’t have drinkable water for the whole reservation when the casino opened,” said resort General Manager and tribal council member Nick Pierre.
The casino opened in December 2000 after about a year of construction. However, opening the casino wasn’t as easy as getting the building permits. The tribe had to get special permission from both the federal government and Washington state to open a casino on land not originally part of their reservation near Usk, Washington. The process took years and was the subject of significant community pushback, including from other tribes in the region.
It was also difficult to get funding for construction of the casino, since no one bank wanted to take the risk on such a large loan with a sovereign government. In the end, the tribe cobbled together funding from 40 different banks to build the casino, Pierre said.
Northern Quest Resort and Casino as it stands today looking west from Hayford Road.
The Kalispel Tribe has about 500 members, with two-thirds of them either living on the reservation or in the local area, Pierre said. Before the casino opened, many tribal members struggled with poverty and not many young people went on to college. The average life expectancy of tribal members had dropped below 50 years old and the tribe actually voted to reduce the age at which a member was considered an elder to 55, Pierre said.
“The tribe’s always been poor,” he said. “We were actually close to declaring bankruptcy before the casino opened.”
The casino quickly changed that. Within six months the tribe was able to begin offering a monthly stipend to tribal elders. The next thing they did was start a language program to preserve their native tongue, Salish, which was spoken fluently by only a handful.
“Our language was almost gone,” he said. “That was one of the first things we helped fund.”
The tribe has a daycare and preschool Salish immersion program. They’ve shared their language program with other tribes in the region who also speak Salish, Pierre said.
“We have one of the strongest language programs in the nation,” he said. “It’s not an easy language to master.”
The tribe currently has a wellness center on the reservation as well as other programs. The tribe gives out college scholarships to members and there are now lawyers, accountants and business leaders who are tribal members. “There’s pretty much every job,” he said.
Pierre was in high school when plans to open the casino began to come to fruition. He graduated in 1997. “School was tough for me,” he said. “I didn’t think I had much opportunity.”
Knowing the casino was coming, Pierre went to work at the Coeur d’Alene casino to get experience. When Northern Quest Casino opened in 55,540 square feet of space, he started working as a tribal gaming inspector. He spent 15 years as an inspector before beginning to work his way up. He went from a high school graduate to the general manager of a resort that sprawls across 500,000 square feet. “The casino greatly changed my life,” he said.
The tribe also benefited another 25-year employee, Executive Director of Casino Operations Kevin Zenishek. He had dropped out of high school his junior year and later earned his GED. He started work at Northern Quest as a blackjack dealer, thanks to a friend who convinced him to sign up for a dealer training session. It was something that Zenishek, who was working in construction, hadn’t considered.
Zenishek, who is not a tribal member, has been with the resort ever since and even went back to school to get a degree in business. “These guys have been pretty good to me,” he said.
He recalls that when the casino first opened, it had to offer “free play” for a certain number of days to make sure everything was working smoothly. “Employees were playing on their breaks, just to play,” he said.
Northern Quest has also benefited the broader community. It employs more than 1,700 people and generates an estimated $275 million in annual economic impact in Spokane County and the surrounding area. The tribe has also given away more than $26 million to charitable organizations in the area.
Executive Director of Casino Operations Kevin Zenishek (left) with Resort General Manager and Tribal Council Member
Nick Pierre (right).
The tribe has a committee that annually considers applications for funding submitted by local non-profit organizations, Pierre said. The organizations selected usually are involved in health care, education, arts and culture, social services and environmental conservation, all priorities of the tribe, he said.
The Kalispel Tribe helped fund the renovation of the historic Fox Theater in downtown Spokane, the new Ronald McDonald House and the new Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, among other projects.
Giving has always been a part of the tribal culture, Pierre said. “I don’t think you hear about it a lot,” he said. “There’s a lot of stories out there about how giving the tribe has been, even when we didn’t have anything.”
The resort grew steadily over the decades, with the first expansion of 99,000 square feet completed in 2002. Another expansion, this one of 160,000 square feet, was completed in 2004. That project added the Pend Oreille concert pavilion, which they immediately realized was too small, Zenishek said.
A parking garage was added in 2008, along with a 50,000 square foot expansion that included what is now the EPIC Sports Bar and additional gaming space.
A $200 million project to build a 250-room hotel, spa and additional dining areas was completed in December 2009. The outdoor concert venue that hosts the resort’s popular summer concert series was completed in 2011 and expanded in 2018. A second hotel tower, this one with 192 rooms, was finished in 2023.
Along the way the tribe has also opened up other businesses. A gas station and convenience store opened up on Highway 2 near Fairchild Air Force Base in 2010 and the tribe opened a Fatburger restaurant in Five Mile in 2012. The restaurant closed in 2022.
A second gas station and convenience store opened just south of the resort in 2015 and later that same year the tribe bought the former Spokane Country Club, now named the Kalispel Golf and Country Club. The Club includes 1898 Public House, a popular restaurant. The tribe also runs a commercial laundry facility and an upholstery shop and leases land for three apartment complexes.
The tribe opened the Kalispel Casino in Cusick, Washington, in 2019, which also includes an RV resort and a gas station. The Northern Quest RV Resort opened that same year.
Along the way numerous touches have been included that reference the tribe and its history, including large metal feathers created by tribal students. One of the resort’s signature pieces is a large chandelier in the hotel lobby. Made of metal, glass and 17,000 Swarovski crystals that create the illusion of flowing water, it includes cattails, tule reeds, Camas flowers and Camas bulbs as found on the Kalispel reservation. Several stainless steel rings represent the circle of life.
The chandelier is more than 21 feet tall and weighs more than 1,000 pounds. It’s visible from the first and second floors of the hotel lobby.
What began as little more than a gaming room is now a diverse economic engine across many locations that benefits both the tribe and the local community. “Seeing how we’ve grown has been pretty cool,” Pierre said. “Of course, the gaming dominates. Everything feeds into everything out here. I think it’s just a cool place to be.”
Pierre said he believes Northern Quest has been so popular because of the hospitality they provide. “We coined what we do here as Kalispel Hospitality,” he said. “It’s just the focus of what we do.”
It’s all about anticipating guest needs, Zenishek said. “The folks that are here now, they live and breathe the service model we have,” he said. “This is who we are. This is how we operate. This is why people choose to come here and not go somewhere else.”
The resort will celebrate its 25th anniversary all year. There will be resort-wide events, themed experiences and special offers during the year. That includes dining discounts, a special anniversary hotel package, a silver anniversary spa package, limited edition apparel and merchandise and a 25 cent fuel discount at Kalispel Market Chevron locations on the 25th of each month for Camas Rewards card users. There will also be a year-long giveaway that will result in a $1 million cash prize.
As the tribe looks forward to the next 25 years, it’s likely that other expansion or upgrade projects will be completed, Pierre said. “We’re always looking at projects,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure the money we spend on something is beneficial for the tribe.”
The BECU Live outdoor venue holds over 5,000 guests offering a “under the stars” experience and is home of the Pepsi Outdoor Concert Series.
