An interview with an elder
by W. Otis Halfmoon
We call ourselves Ni-mee-poo, which means “The People.” We also call ourselves Tsoopnitpeloo, and Tsoopnitpeloo means “The Walking-Out People”—people from the mountains come to the plains, to hunt buffalo.
"the extent of our journey"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“…this I could plainly See would be the extent of our journey by water, as the waves were too high at any Stage for our Canoes to proceed any further down ….”
Looking for a canoe camp
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark spent the night of 21 September 1805 at Twisted Hair’s camp on an island in the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River. The next morning the chief and his son accompanied him back up to the village on Weippe Prairie where he expected to rendezvous with Lewis.
Nez Perce camas grounds
by Joseph A. Mussulman
For countless generations, Weippe Prairie (prounouced WEE-yipe), like Travelers’ Rest, was a major node in the transportation, trade, and social networks of the Rocky Mountain West.
And a return to Bald Mountain
by Joseph A. Mussulman
By the evening of 17 September 1805, their seventh sleep west of Travelers’ Rest, it was obvious to the captains that the Indians’ assurance that they could cross the mountains in six days was false, whereas the prediction that they would find no game there was all too true.
Tough going
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Although none of the journalists mentioned it, the very presence of last winter’s snow on those mountains in late September must have aroused the feeling that crossing the Rockies was going to be even tougher than they had figured.
Leaving the Lochsa
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“Several horses Sliped and roled down Steep hills which hurt them verry much The one which Carried my desk & Small trunk Turned over & roled down a mountain for 40 yards & lodged against a tree, broke the Desk…”
The falls of the Missouri comprised the most remarkable of all the “remarkeable points” that Clark described and mapped in conscientious obedience to an order from Thomas Jefferson to take observations “with great pains & accuracy.”
"A pretty little plain"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis acknowledged it was “a pretty little plain of about 50 acres plentifully stocked with quawmash” and “one of the principal stages or encampments of the indians”
"Tremendious Mountanes"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“I have been wet and as cold in every part as I ever was in my life,” Clark complained. “Indeed I was at one time fearfull my feet would freeze in the thin mockersons which I wore.”
"beautiful to see"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“These Springs are very beautiful to See, and we think them to be as good to bathe in &c. as any other ever yet found in the United States,” avowed Private Joe Whitehouse.
Last gate of the Rockies
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Lewis’s simple, orderly concept of the Rocky Mountains began to crumble. The truth was, this was not the easy portage to the Pacific Ocean they had expected from the beginning. Countless “chains” of mountains still intervened.
Over Lemhi Pass
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Below the summit of today’s Lemhi Pass, Lewis said that he had reached “the most distant fountain of the waters of the mighty Missouri in surch of which we have spent so many toilsome days and wristless nights.”
Expectation v. reality
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Clark evidently began compiling a map of the Northern Rockies after meeting with Hugh Heney at Fort Mandan on 18 December 1804, and continued adding information acquired from other traders, as well as from Indians. The reality, he would find, was much different.
Bitterroot Mountain sentinels
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 7 September 1805, the day after they left the Salish people at Ross’s Hole, the Corps proceeded north down the Bitterroot River valley. “The foot of the Snow toped mountains approach near the river on the left,” wrote Clark.
Leaving the Indian road
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Continuing north up the North Fork Salmon River, they leave a good Indian road and must cut their own trail. Were they lost? Sergeant Gass’s laconic remark gives us a hint: “This was not the creek our guide wished to have come upon.”
Examining Shoshone foods
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis learned about three unfamiliar species of edible roots–a bushel of them altogether. The Shoshones who were encamped nearby helped him sort them out, and told him how they were customarily prepared.
"Our old guide Toby"
by Charles R. Knowles, John Puckett
Toby, the name used by Lewis and Clark for the Shoshone guide who took them across the Bitterroot Mountains on their journey to the Pacific, was one of the more important, if enigmatic, of the many Native Americans who assisted the explorers on their epic trip.
For today’s traveler to Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains, seeing an elk is still a gamble. But hunters don’t give up; every fall, they pester locals with the same question, “Where’s the elk?”
Traces of the ancient trail
by Steve F. Russell
Imagine a time when all travel was on foot. This ancient time was the beginning of travel across the rugged Bitterroot Mountains for the Indian tribes of the northwest United States. This is a story of travel in those mountains from ancient times up to the present.
This page was funded in part by a grant from the Idaho Governor's Lewis and Clark Trail Committee.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with cooperation and funding from the following organizations:
Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).