Nez Perce camps, reuniting with horses — John Ordway: May 10, 1806

to Snow Some time last night and the Snow fell 6 Inches deep &
continues chilly & cold this morning, & we had not any thing to eat.
got up our horses & Set out & proced on over a high Smooth plain
no timber, the Snow melts a little but the air cold, wrode about
20 miles descended a steep hill down in a valley and bottom in
which a creek runs through, and Camped2 near a village of the
head chiefs of ab* 15 lodges, they had their flag hoisted and ap-
peared glad to see us. gave us some commass roots which had been
Swetted last fall, some Shappalell and a little dry fish, but have
but little the natives have great numbers of horses gave us two
to kill, we killed one to eat. Some of the women pitched a leather
lodge and brought wood & made a fire in it and [the] chiefs
invited our officers to Stay in it, and talked together our of-
ficers told them our business & C. in the evening we played
the fiddle and danced a while a number of Indians came from
other villages to See us the Snow is gone in this bottom but
1 At the Forks of the Kooskooskee or Clearwater, where the party had
encamped from Sept. 26 to Oct. 7, 1805, while engaged in building canoes in
which to descend the Columbia. The nearest indication of the location of
today’s camp is afforded by the statement of Lewis that it was four miles dis-
tant from Canoe Camp. This means four miles to the westward of Canoe Camp,
in the direction of the upper waters of Big Canon (or Little Canon) River.
2 Today’s route led up the west side of the Kooskooskee, to modern Law-
yer’s Canon Creek, the boundary between Lewis and Idaho counties. The
camp of May 10-13 was on this creek some three or four miles above its entrance
into the Kooskooskee.
356 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS [May 11
lyes on the high plains & hills considerable of cottonwood and
wild or choke cherry along this creek & Scattering pine on the
edges of the hills, &C. we are now as near the Mountains as we
can git untill Such times as the Snow is nearly gone of [f] the moun-
tains as we are too eairly to cross, one of the party purchased a
dog this even8 but the most of their dogs are too poor to eat.