Dispatches from the Discovery Trail ~ Episode 16

EPISODE 16

A Big Disappointment

By Michael O. Perry

Chief Cameahwait drew a map in the dirt and made it clear there was no easy route across the Rocky Mountains. Lewis attempted to “obtain what information I could with rispect to the country.” Lewis had hoped the Lemhi River flowed through the mountains, but Cameahwait told him it flowed north for a half day’s march before joining the Salmon River. Cameahwait told of “vast mountains of rock eternally covered with snow through which the river passed, that the perpendicular and even jutting rocks so closely hemmed in the river that there was no possibilyte of passing along the shore; that the bed of the river was obstructed by sharp pointed rocks and the rapidity of the stream such that the whole surface of the river was beat into perfect foam as far as the eye could reach.” Cameahwait told Lewis he had never crossed the mountains, but “that he had understood from the persed nosed [Nez Perce] Indians who inhabit this river below the rocky mountains that it ran a great way toward the setting sun and finally lost itself in a great lake of water which was illy taisted, and where the white men lived.” Lewis now had a pretty good idea about the drainage west of the Continental Divide. Cameahwait told Lewis the Nez Perce crossed the mountains every year “ to hunt buffalo in presentday Montana. Cameahwait said their route was to the north, “but added that the road was a very bad one as he had been informed by them and that they had suffered excessively with hunger on the rout being obliged to subsist for many days on berries alone as there were no game in that part of the mountains which was broken rockey and so thickly covered with timber that they could scarcely pass.” On August 21st the men awoke to find a quarter-inch of ice on jugs of water. Everyone was aware of the short time left to cross the Rocky Mountains.

View of the Lo Lo Peak area and the formidable mountains which loomed ahead. Near the present-day border of Idaho and Montana. Postcard from the author ’ s Private collection. River to see if there was a possibility of going that route. But after a week, he knew the Indians hadn’t ... “no easy route”... lied. Clark sent a man with a note telling Lewis to buy more horses since the Salmon River was impassable.

These guys grew up in the Appalachians, Daniel Boone and all Today, the Salmon River is still known as the River of No Return. those guys. That’s what mountains were to them, and they hadn’t Meanwhile Lewis had, “purchased five good horses of them seen anything like this. That’s why I think Clark very reasonably, or at least for about the value of six dollars and Lewis both assumed they were going to go up a piece in merchandize.” While Clark was exploring the this mountain, cross a ridge, and head down. They possibility of going down the Salmon River, Lewis used the horses, a mule, and some Shoshone women didn’t comprehend that there were 200 more miles to carry their cargo the rest of the way from Camp of impassable terrain.” Fortunate to Cameahwait’s camp at Lemhi Pass where the journey through the mountains would begin.

A minor inconvenience?

On August 26th, Lewis wrote “one of the women who had been assisting in the transportation of the baggage halted at a little run about a mile behind us… I enquired of Cameahwait the cause of her detention, and was informed by him in an unconcerned manner that she had halted to bring fourth a child… in about an hour the woman arrived with her newborn baby and passed us on her way to the camp.” cont page 7

It’s NOT downhill all the way?

It appears Lewis and Clark were still in a state of denial. A water passage through the mountains was still a desperate dream they both wanted to realize if possible. Lewis traded a uniform coat, a pair of leggings, a few handkerchiefs, three knives, and some trinkets for three horses, “the whole of which did not cost more than about 20$ in the U’States.” Clark and eleven men then set out to explore the Salmon

Michael Perry enjoys local history and travel. His popular 33-installment Lewis & Clark series appeared in Columbia River Reader’s early years and helped shape its identity and zeitgeist. After two encores, the series has been expanded and published in a book. Details, pages 2, 43.

M I C H A E L O. P E R R Y dispatches from the Discovery trail

with HAL CALBOM woodcut art by dEbby NEELy

A LAYMAN’S LEWIS & CLARK ... “the most terrible mountains” ...

They were up in the hillsides and it’s rugged. It is nasty country. I can’t even imagine people like you and me going up there with a “ backpack even and trying to get across it without using existing roads. It would be a real challenge. One of the horses that fell in the river had Clark’s writing desk on it and broke it to smithereens. I always wondered what he did after that to write. How did he make his maps and everything?”

in april 2021 we introDuceD a reviseD version of Michael Perry’s popular series which was expanded In the new book, Dispatches from the Discovery Trail, edited by Hal Calbom and published by CRRPress. It includes an in-depth author interview and new illustrations and commentary.

from page 5 While still transporting their cargo, Charbonneau told Lewis he had learned the Indians were going to leave the next day to hunt buffalo — before Lewis could purchase the additional horses they would need. He was able to delay their departure and bought 22 more horses on August 28th. Clark hired an old Shoshone Indian called Toby to guide them over the mountains, and two days later the rest of the Shoshone Indians left to go hunt buffalo. The Corps reached the North Fork of the Salmon River on September 1st, and then traversed mountainsides so steep the horses slipped and slid down the slopes. Rain and snow fell, making the journey even more dangerous.

Is this the way to San Jose?

On September 4th, they met 400 Salish Indians (called Flatheads by Lewis and Clark) with 500 horses near presentday Sula, Montana. They bought 13 horses and exchanged 7 others. Toby then led the Corps down the East Fork of the Bitterroot River. When asked, Toby confessed he had no idea if the river joined the Columbia River (it does). The Expedition had traveled north along the Continental Divide and across trail-less mountains to get to Travelers Rest. Toby told the Captains of a trail from there east to the Great Falls that only took four days; the Corps circuitous route had taken 53 days. The Corps spent a couple of days at Travelers Rest on Lolo Creek, ten miles southwest of present-day Missoula, Montana. While hunting, George Colter ran into three Nez Perce Indians and brought them back to Travelers Rest. One of them agreed to guide the Corps the rest of the way over the mountains, which, he said, was a six-day hike. However, the Nez Perce guide abandoned them a day later. The Corps continued to follow an old trail that had

“lewis and Clark meeting indians at ross’ hole,” by Charles m. russell Russell memorializes the critical September 1805 meeting that first put the Expedition in touch with the Flatheads, or Salish, who would provide them with their horses for the critical next stage of the trip. The largest painting Russell ever did, the 12 foot by 25 foot mural hangs in the legislative chamber of the Montana State Capitol in Helena. Note again the primacy of the Indians in the narrative, with Lewis and Clark, with Sacajawea interpreting, in the background.

... relegating? ... Ironically, amidst a culture accused often of relegating Indians and marginalizing them, Russell if anything “relegated” the

been used by the Nez white men of the Expedition in many of We’ve got you covered. Perce since the 1730s. This trail is still visible today. his paintings. Speaking of his most famous canvas, the magnificent mural “Lewis and Travel was extremely Clark Meeting Indians at Ross’ Hole,” one difficult and, as Chief historian noted, “By relegating Lewis and Cameahwait had said, there were virtually Clark to the quiet of the middle ground at WATER. FIRE. SMOKE. MOLD no animals to shoot and eat. On September 13th they reached Lolo right, Russell gives over the most important part of the picture space to Montana’s Hot Springs and saw original inhabitants. Nowhere else in the a bathing hole used Capitol is the Indian presence in Montana Call 360-425-3331 by the Indians. They crossed the Bitterroot Mountains at Lolo Pass so celebrated.” ServiceMaster by JTS–Longview, WA • www.servicemasterjts.com and began the journey down the Lochsa River, which joins the Clearwater River. The men were starving. The portable soup they had brought from St. Louis was rancid. Finally, on September 14th, they killed a horse to eat. It would not be the last time they had to do that. Patrick Gass wrote, these are “the most terrible mountains I ever beheld.” As bad as the journey had been up to that point, the worst was yet to come. The journey over those unknown, formidable snow clad mountains will be covered next episode. •••