Bitterroot Archives - Lewis & Clark Research Database

We Proceeded On

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 18:46:29 +0000

Charles Fritz’s We Proceeded On shows the Corps of Discovery strung out along a wooded mountain trail, men and horses moving in single file through the steep, timbered country of the Bitterroot Range. The composition is horizontal and panoramic, with the line of travelers cutting diagonally across the canvas, partly obscured by lodgepole pines and broken terrain. Fritz works in a tight realist idiom in oil, attending to the dun and bay coloring of the pack horses, the muted tones of the men’s worn hunting shirts and capotes, and the gray-green cast of high-elevation conifer forest. The painting’s title quotes the phrase the captains used dozens of times in their journals to mark another day’s advance.

The scene refers to the expedition’s crossing of the Bitterroots along the Lolo Trail in September 1805, the most physically punishing stretch of the westbound journey. Guided by Old Toby, the Shoshone they had engaged at Camp Fortunate, Lewis and Clark led the Corps over a high, snow-dusted ridge route used by the Nez Perce to reach the buffalo country. The men ran short of game, killed and ate several colts, and arrived at the Weippe Prairie on September 22 in a weakened condition. Fritz painted this work in 2004, during the bicentennial commemoration years of 2003–2006, when he was completing a long cycle of expedition paintings intended to follow the route in sequence.

Fritz, a Montana-based painter born in 1955, has built much of his career around historical landscape and the Lewis and Clark subject in particular. His bicentennial-era series of roughly one hundred expedition paintings was exhibited and published as Charles Fritz: An Artist with the Corps of Discovery, and individual works from the cycle were shown at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, which has handled provenance for several pieces in the series. We Proceeded On is held in the collection of Timothy Peterson. The painting shares its title with the quarterly journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, a phrase that has become shorthand within the historical-memory tradition for the expedition’s daily grind of forward movement.

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Dr. William L on the Lolo Trail and Old Toby’s Route

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:54 +0000

for us to learn from different individuals with different backgrounds different areas of expertise and today we are very fortunate to have with us Dr William L from Hastings College um in the past he has been a junior high teacher he is currently a professor of teacher education at hings College which is um just about 1 and a half hours West of Lincoln Nebraska in in addition to um teaching at the colle she also has led um Historic Trail trips over the past 20 years um and those are for teachers and in June he has done some most recently some tours and courses on the Louis M Clark Trail today he will be presenting a program entitled did old Toby know the way would you please help me welcome Dr will Lo I hope they have the sound adjusted they do they are very good at this and I want to thank um um the National Park Service and all the other agencies that have collaborated to do this wonderful project which we’ve probably all heard about can you hear me hear hit the back okay as a college professor uh we’re used to 50 minutes we’re used to um making students in the back with the ball caps and the sunglasses doding off the students of H’s College are great um in fact I remember one of the last uh courses that I taught in May um I Heard students talking after after the class and and they were trying to decide what to do since it was Friday what what were we going to do Friday night and one person said oh hey here’s what we do we’ll flip aart if it’s heads uh we’ll get dates and go to the movs if it’s tail uh we’ll just go stay and uh get the bars after we’ll just go stay and if it lands on edge we’ll go home instead so um thank you very much to uh Omaha Raskin uh all of you who have this interest in the Lewis and Clark Saga um participants of the Lewis and clar trails classes that I have led over the years we call them survivors and there are some here a mouth of the black folks and there are some of them here I’ve spoken to them U and um Pat Jones who helped to arrange for my being here and what a beautiful day and beautiful setting to be celebrating uh the American Odyssey that we call the ls and Clark expedition now this presentation uh is about a part of the trail that perhaps some of you have not heard so much about it’s the part of the trail where they were on land and in the high Bitter Root range of mountains one of the most difficult range of mountains in the country uh and I will describe the difficulties that they fac and uh difficulties that nearly defeated the Expedition now the question is did old Toby know the way did old Toby know the way old Toby also known as swooping Eagle we think guided them through this difficult terrain but some imply that he lost the way lost the way at lost trail pass lost the away uh on the Lo nimi Trail and thus added to the hardships that the course suffered I’m going to disagree with that and claim based on the reading of the journals and of the experts that is M and fio uh and others that old Toby did know the way as far as he had travel and that where they were lost was more of a contrast in cultural attitudes that I mean that Lewis and Clark were determin to go west to the Pacific before winter and so they wouldn’t always follow old Toby’s advice to follow the easier Trail LS and Clark you know went faced with a challenge or told that they couldn’t do it only became more determined right absolutely tell them what it couldn’t be done and by golly they would do it uh undaunted courage the title of the famous book explains that attitude okay now where my ideas about old Toby really took shape was when I walked the trail and I’m kind of a Hiker Biker climber type of person um and so I’ve had the opportunity to hike many of the rugged areas of the trail on the Montana IO border and you know when you like when you walk in the footsteps every few feet there are light BS oh I see what they were talking about oh now I get so that’s what I can share with you is uh this travel through the difficult bitter Roots now let me kind of show you where oh first how many of you have heard of the sh Tri of course how many how many of you have heard of Kam the chief and brother of Chicago how many of you have heard of old Toby good great and how many of you have heard of lemi pass which was named later now it’s going to be it’s confusing for me because I really want to use the original Shi names like Wabi is the Shon name for when I pass but that confuses people so I may go back and forth probably more often I’ll use both names like logo Trail and N how many have heard of the Lo Trail also known as n how many have been on L I pass wonderful and lost trail pass and L pass and the L Trail any of you walked all over the L Trail quite a bit of it a little bit of it okay let me show you where we’re at okay the first part of my talk appropriate is that what am I supposed to quit um begins at the gates of the mountains and we travel through in down the Jefferson River up the Jefferson River and Lewis and Clark are seeing snow on the high mountains as they move through this area then they get to what today we call Clark Canyon reservoir south of Dylan how many of you have been there put that on your list you can camp there or stay in Dyan at the motels then that’s where they met Come Away sh and old Toby became their guide then they work for old Toby LED them North over lost trail pass down to B Valley which was easy and then they turned West up the l n Trail and that got very very tough okay so that gives you the location of my presentation and then there’ll be slides to show the tra and please though there’ll be time for questions and answers uh during the talk ask me anytime I love that we begin with two questions number one was old Toby qualified to lead the expedition way thought so he said he’s our best he knows that country to the north north of uh of the s River is what he used and um Lewis wrote in his journal that he was very intelligent and uh that U he much pleased Clark much pleased Clark the second question did oi really know the entire route now by the entire route I mean from let see there it is from L by pass can you see that pointer I wiggle around there we have PR on the other side of the bitter Roots a heart of the N first country yes he knew the route over lost trail pass yes he knew the route through the bito valley that’s Hamilton and Darby the location of major forest fires in the last few years in National TV yes he knew the eastern part of the L nimu Trail West of Missoula but after the headquarters of the lock saw on the Idaho side of L pass I say wait just a minute because that’s Nez first country shonis and N veres were enemies would it have been safe for old Toby to have traveled the western part of the nimu trail Into the Heart of as first country I don’t see how I just don’t see how to the headquarters of the Locka to fish for salmon yes now my argument is that old Toby knew exactly where he was going up to the fishing areas of the Locka after that they didn’t need a guy the problem was not knowing the trail because hundreds of n first Horsemen went back and forth one once or twice a year that leaves a strong trail even in the snow the problem was they were hungry they were cold they were exhausted the weather was absolutely lousy that was the problem that wasn’t old to’s fa now to set the stage for the meeting with old Toby let’s join the Expedition at the gates of the rocky BS how many have been at the gates of the rocky mounts near hel terrific wonderful place and recommend it to you so about in here Lewis was beginning to become desperate to find the Indians he’d been looking for them all the time since leaving The mandad Villages had seen n some signs but no so he’s looking off I’m going to the direction they were going we’re going to pretend that we’re going up River that’s up River so they’re looking off to the west and they see snow now this is late August mid they see snow on the high Peach wow we got to get across these mountains this is going to be tougher than we thought they look off to the left and they see the tobacco rout mountains and Willow Creek comes down and they name it philanthropy because they were Masons and that was a Mason the Sonic virin but no Indians they look to the right again the Pioneer mountains looming up with snow in the tops but no Indians out comes the beautiful River they almost take it today it’s called the big hole they named it the wisdom another Messiah vir on up the river now Lewis and Le is on ahead now with his best trackers he is anxious he’s not sleeping well he’s worried and he was a worrier anyway you know that and now he sees mountains to the South The Bitter Root range more snow but no Indians he comes to a fork in the Jefferson River this is what it looks like today in late winter to the left in that picture is where the true source of the Missouri lies it’s called Red Rock River and the farthest source of the Red Rock River is Hell roing Creek which I’ve been fortunate to to go to and I wish I had time to show you the slides of the highest Springs of the Missouri River that River begins at Eloy Creek in Elroy Canyon about 20 mil crowly miles west of West Yellowstone Montana they didn’t take that way because they sent drer and the trail faded now Jefferson said find the source of the Missour but which is going to take precedence take that River the stronger River but the Indian Trail Fades or go right where the trail is strong they’ve got to have horses that means they’ve got to find the Shon so they went right to the right of that picture that is horse Prairie Creek one of the great Ranch areas Hay Meadows of the world you should go there just to see the way they construct the gates out uh out of Lodge B Pine and up they went and I’m shortening a lot of this but at one point Lewis with his glass spies a lone Rider and he calls out do you know what he calls out have you read it tone he calls mean he thinks it means friend but something got lost in the translation it meant stranger T and the wrer we wheels and heads back up the creek he is upset and Lewis could get upset Clark was steady and even Lewis could get upset he was so determined and he blamed his trusted trackers Jer and uh h m meil they said guys you should have pulled back and let me advance now he was really worried but did he turn around no he finally got to what he called the source of the mour and let let me show you that and he’s about to meet old to this is what he called the most distant found August 12th the road took us to the most distant Fountain of the mighty Missouri in search of which we have spent so many toysome days and restless nights that’s the place now I’ve worked with the Park Service I’ve hyped every every mile of that string uh the highest spring is actually several miles further up where it’s very hard to get to and where you can’t get there just as a tourist I mean you got to be a serious hiker but this is where we think he was talking and H McNeil said uh how grateful he was to reach the source of a mighty Missouri the farthest source and get a cold drink so Lewis kept going even though he had not found Indians this is one of the highest Springs that’s the map that I made some of my conclusions on okay now this is one of my great favorite slides of my life because those are my two grandsons WID and see that tree that’s at the top broken off by lightning that is a Douglas Fur forers People call them du fur when you get down and stand underneath it it is that big around folks that was there in when the core of Discovery walked up the hill that’s where they walked up to L that’s where Lewis walked and what did he see that’s what he saw he said from which I discovered immense ranges of high mountains still to the west of us with their tops partially covered with snow he could have said no Northwest Passage can turned around he could have said the end of the American dream for the Northwest Passage instead he went on down across those lower Hills and met two women digging for roots at the end of the season they kneel to be Ted to be killed and instead he gave them face Pake beads breads they were Overjoyed ran and it wasn’t long before Horsemen 50 or 60 they debate the number rode up huged them all they were it was mosquito season so they were covered with bear Grease the National Hug was like this and Lewis had got hardly tired of the national H but he found the Indians and of course you know the coincidence the Sago brother Kam was the chief I mean there’s a dickan connection if ever and they traded for horses they traded for horses now but where did they go through all that where do they go so Kam gives them a geography lesson and he says the salmon goes north and west and it goes to a great quing a Great Lake of water which was fly i l l y tasted but it could not be passed either by boat or on foot or my H so what do you think leis and Clark did my God we’re going to check it out I’ll bet we can do it so old Toby guided them skillfully Clark they split up Lewis to trade for horses Clark to find whether they can pass the S what was the answer you know that country it’s called the River of No Return To This Day the River of No Return one of the deepest Gorges in North America but Clark went 22 miles spent 4 days but he came back really impressed with toldy toy knew so he sent word there won’t work get more horses we’re going to take the North Fork of the salon and go over this pass now let me show you this p and here’s where the conflicted cultures and maybe Lewis and cl’s do or dying attitude uh came into conflict today it’s called Lost trail pass not because old Toby got them lost surveyors got lost up in there so let’s Okay that’s what it looks like today that’s an April shot it is very confusing a lot of times passes are very clear if you work your way up and up and up you get to the top it’s real easy you go down there you can’t go down there can’t go down you got to go down there but lost trail pass which is between Salmon Idaho and gar Montana is confusing it’s almost like a plateau there are many passes you can’t tell which way to go old Toby said okay our tribe goes this way we follow a creek we go up to the right here we go over into the Magnificent big ho Valley we camp there then we go up over this pass and we meet the Salish speaking Indians at Ross’s hole we call it Ross’s hole today no what we’re not going back East we’ve G out of our way enough we’ve got to get to the Pacific before winter we’re going straight up up there big mistake old told we didn’t know that way now can you see though why Lewis and Clark were determined to go the shortest most direct way you’ve read enough about their temperament the determination so they get up in the North Fork of the salon I wish I had I’ve got some aerial shots of that uh but I don’t think I could take time to do that but um they got up the North Fork and they wrote in their journals the horses slip they got they couldn’t get over the down timber the brush was bad the mosquitoes were bad the the beaver pugs were awful they were just complaining right and left and old told me and tried to tell them so now they get up to about the area of the ski there’s a ski area there now and there it had been raining and perhaps it was cloudy and foggy and they didn’t know where to go bottom line is they went off to the West now Louis Mard they didn’t want to go East didn’t they they trying to go west so what would you do they we got to hang West we got to hang West told me saying now if you go too far east you’re going to drop off into the big ho Val so they West and West and Higher and Higher and they went folks four or five miles at least higher 2,000 ft higher out of our way but it wasn’t old Toby’s fault his VI old Toby had never been there it wasn’t the route that any of the tribes so they finally found their way down and they did come down into a drainage of the Vio and met a wonderful group of Indians the S speaking Indians at Ross’s pole which is a valley surrounded by mountains and there’s a famous painting up there and they got more horses so round one I give to Old Toby the core would have been wiser to have followed his longer route they’d have been in much better shape and saved time so OT toi was right on the main Fork of the salon he was right at lost trail pass now we go to and they went down the bito valley which is beautiful today it’s Darby in Hamilton it’s a it’s a tourist area it’s beautiful this tent will be somewhere in uh the Dylan and Missoula area uh next year I think is when we get there it is beautiful their log cabs for sale oh mountains on both sides there a lot of it is burned up by the way and then the little town of loo a creek comes in and that’s the creek the chamate said take that Creek and take that trail and they Camp there and they called it Travelers Rest they know where the camp is because they found mercury in the latrine does anyone know why they there would be mercury in the latrine what Med medicine for what everything matter everything but including STDs so rested now and after a few days of good weather they head up the L Trail and on the classes tours that I leave uh we stop at two or three points on the loo meu Trail first place is how Creek now the discovery starts out fine up the valley and then the trail goes up into the mountains and folks when I say up I mean up and up to The Ridges ridgetops only to have to drop down again at the first big drain which is Howard Creek oh and they complained about that they said um um terrible tra hard tra and some of the stragglers didn’t get into Camp until 10: p.m. there at night and folks this now is in late August early September and the days are getting shorter so that means the last 2 and 1/2 hours they would have been in full dark they’re having a tough time but not only told his fault he’s taking them on the trail the trail now is the Nim food trail to the Buffalo back and forth from Western Idaho into the basins of Montana to hunt Buffalo h hundreds of ponies hundreds of ponies back and forth once or twice a year an easy trip the problem was the weather and the steepness and Louis CLK had no idea that the Mountains of Montana and Ida open this tough yeah let’s just show you how what that looks like okay we come back to that okay uh there might even be some of you in here who have hiked this part of the trail with me but now look off to right can you see the steepness of the Grave look up above the rock out crops that’s the trail folks you get off that trail you’re in big trouble there’s snow on that trail you have problems some of our some Nebraska teachers sitting on the ground outro I take teachers and others who are in love with the story looking out you see a v now where does it end where do the bit Roots end you look out from Long’s pink and you see the ples but not here you look out any direction and that is what you see the bitter roots are a big block that’s been lifted up the valleys are v-shaped it is confusing you break a leg hunting there in uh in October you’re in big trouble blowdowns they complain in the journals about the blowdowns this is not old Toby’s fault the uh as first knew they would just go around so the trail was always changing to some extent depending on the blowdowns uh so there is one place that old Toby got lost and I’ll admit it LOL Hot Springs have any of you been there sure beautiful place it’s commercial it’s tourist but I don’t care it’s beautiful it’s been a hunting lodge since the late 18 HS and they were there the main spring is right where the building is and R Clark stopped there and then old Toby got lost why did he get lost there well I think he might have been there I’ll give him credit the reason he got lost I think is there were too many trailers why would there be too many trails at the great Hot Springs well all the wildlife came there all the tribes came there everybody came there and so he had trails from every direction and he headed out probably on a game Trail or it could been a trail from a tribe from the north okay and after 2 or three miles they realized hey this is not veering around like it’s supposed to It’s supposed to stay close to the creek and they got back on the right Trail and Lewis and Clark mentioned that in the journal that old to took them out on the wrong trail but that’s understandable have you ever hyped and there are too many trails that’s more of a worry to mean no Trail too many trails if you don’t really know where the trail is supposed to go you are in truck okay now back on the trail and they get to what Bill CL our state poet how many of know Bill herting Reed Lon Lincoln our state poet he wrote a whole book of poems about Lewis and Clark TR and he has a poem about this place there is a metal it he folks I call this the world’s most beautiful metal in any season here it is blue with a beautiful flower that the Indians dep on known as cus or quamish is how they wrote it in the journals and there it is in Winter beautiful then too now with that picture of when bridge in the background Toby had two choices you take a somewhat easier but still rugged Trail and go down to the beginning of the Locka River anyone better along the lock song now that’s what old Toby did why did he go down with the Locka because that’s where he had been because shonis probably could have gone up that eastern part of the trail and down into the headwaters of the locksa to fish for salmon they fished for salmon on the L for near lemi pass so why not on the locksa and he knew the core was hungry so what makes more sense than to go the route that you knew to the fishing areas and to get fish for the core now the other way is the main way supposedly the highway that sticks to the Divide between the locksa and the North Fork of the clear water now folks I’ve seen that that’s where the Crooked fire was in August of 2000 I saw the firefighters along the highway 12 they wouldn’t even go down that precipice but that’s where the trail went so even had told we taken them the highway just west just west of the pass down brooken Creek and back up again it would have been very difficult so now he’s down at the locksa and he has only one way now to get back up to the hike Trail and that is what we call today Wendover Ridge it is the world’s greatest hike on a ridge now the first mile is a little tough The Nest Pur tribal members have been hired for the forest service to build big long vehicle switch back in that first Mile and you gain about 00 ft but with that trail it’s not bad at all I recommend to any of you have good ankles good knees hiking boots or shoes then after that you’re on this Ridge for about 10 more miles and folks this Ridge is perfect I’ve walked it in three different seasons just don’t do it in tick season that Ridge goes all the way to the high Trail Gaines over 2,000 ft almost 3,000 ft and there’s nearly a deep s on the whole R just up up up liid level up up up let me show you some more slides it Wind Ridge is not often spoken of but it is a truly great height and you get scenes 360° cuz you can look off both sides of bridge uh some of those most of those are Nebraska some are E’s college students some are teachers and others from Nebraska probably some from area and I don’t have uh this year’s slides entered into my oh sorry oh I will show this I hiked that’s in April and it’s uh in a few more feet I start getting into snow it had been raining and drizzling and I’m all decked down and my Gators and my raining Parker and I needed them thing is the ticks got into all my layers uh so I really felt Goosebumps because I felt this must have been a day a lot like the day when Le up over rge and that’s the river the locksa river now I will close by saying that they were on the trail the problem was getting up window over Ridge was no weather it was wet and cold and snowy and they were short of food and were hungry they had been in some beautiful areas haacker Meadows for example uh the locks saww River and The Lodges the hunting lodges along there we sure to stop and Campell on there uh and another problem was there was no water on the ridge so they had to go high enough to get to snow which they did and that that camp is called snowbank Camp then many hard miles to go but I don’t I think old Toby knew that part because it was the har of best first country it wouldn’t have been safe but the problem for Lis Clark was not staying on the trail the problem was they were hungry they killed Colts they ate their famous or inFAMOUS portable suit a little bit like I guess bull cubes the men hated it and finally leis went on ahead got to we Prairie where they gorged on on cus roots and salmon and got so sick that they were laying about and the nest Pur could have slipped their throats taken their state-ofthe-art har fa rles but an old lady Indian lady said oh I know these people I’ve heard that they healed people up at the Mad Villages don’t hurt them and so they help now that’s the end of my old toly story with a quote from Tennyson then we have time for questions when a quote Tennyson it it is my favorite poems he closes one equal temper of heroic Hearts made Weak by time and fate but strong in will to strive to seek and not to heal and Lewis and Clark and old told me and the expedition refused to yield they made it and old Toby was a huge help to them thank you now we have 7 minutes so I’m pretty close for a college professor who’s used to 50 minutes I did pretty good to stay within 35 or whatever it was what are your questions yes is this a map uh where they were would you tell us on this map oh excuse me on this map here uh over that map which were M do you here for the beginning part when I had to slide up oh maybe I should go back to that slide I think well that those of you saw that map slide can I answer his question with that map slide better I think so it was not I give so many programs on so many different angles that it it helps me to have um all my slides in one prr okay here it goes point you wake up there it is okay this is hel about right in there and this is L High Pass where they met the Shi and to this is about lost trail pass the first place I told you where he said go right into the big hole but they said no no we’re going direct save time we can do it we’re tough and this is the high meaning F Lolo trailer and W over Ridge and Packer meows and L hot spr does that help yes thank you good okay I’ll repeat the question the part of the uh trip that I’m talking about the Land Park from Camp fortunate near Dylan over to about Leon Idaho was probably about 250 miles the whole thing though I have a student in here who can probably answer that anyone know the answer to the number of miles on a whole trip it was 6,000 and something have you ever been to the Confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi north of St Louis have you go there on the Illinois side they have a visitor center now you can walk back and you look across the mighty Mississippi and see the Missouri coming in and the Missouri is a presence that river right there has such a strong current that it washed out the visitor center or the U The View Center on the Illinois side that current crossed all the way across the Mississippi and what an undercut underc Banks didn’t I don’t know if they have it repaired yet how much Congress now we’re into politics uh was it $2,500 about but oh there’s so many ways to go with that question yeah that’s what I was thinking about all that there in the time that I have I can’t answer all the spin-off questions Jefferson had been planed this Venture ever since he wrote the Declaration of Independence I’m convinced he tried four times to mount an expedition they failed he brought Lewis into his administration brought him into the White House Lewis you’re the man and leis was the man he was smart he was tough uh he only over spent Lewis over spent and part of the reason he got really down after the Expedition and he was governor was that people were criticizing him for spending too much money he couldn’t get all of his vouchers honor and he was on his way back to Washington DC to defend himself and his handling of the monies when he committed suicide least he died I think he committed suicide also there’s a whole Louisiana Purchase and money for that was not approved to the extent they borrowed from Dutch Banks so there you can say Jefferson was piss but he told first Livingston then Monroe you try to get New Orleans and part of the Mississippi River nobody dreamed that Napoleon would sell the whole thing except Jefferson and uh Jefferson and Napoleon were the two of the world political scene and they were playing a giant chess game and Jefferson won Jefferson was one smart man and Monroe there and with Monroe signing the agreement see Congress would more likely approve very very interesting politics here some of the new englanders didn’t like it too well because they thought the new states that would come in for the Louisiana Purchase would vote unlik them and more like Virginia now I took too long to answer that question we have time for one more one more really tough question as a college professor that’s what we drive on we get the tough questions in L of salary by by the time died was all this money B by the oh that is a tough one her question is by the time Jefferson died had all this money been paid back for the Louisiana Purchase I have no idea we may still be paying for it wow I need to give you a special pin that you can’t even make a try except they borrowed from Dutch Banks and uh it was paid over time don’t know what the interest was but I’ve read the document I’m not so sure it says the interest rate and there was plenty of discussion about approving it but it was approved and by a wide margin and uh by the way uh Jefferson died um on July 4th the same day as one of our other great founding fathers who was who were friends than enemies and then F and they died on the same day that’d be a good place for me to conclude it’s 10 till 12 11 till give me credit it’s 112 one minute early thank you very much than you once again Dr will L thank you for coming out and speaking today was a wonderful presentation Next program inside of the tent to many voices will start at just you can you hear me okay uh I’m not a historian so uh I’m a Fisheries biologist by trade so for those of you who were sitting uh here a few minutes ago listening to the professor from H’s College I probably won’t be quite that elegant but I’d like to tell you a little bit about the Missour River and what some people I.E uh government employees who are working for all of you are doing to help make the river better we operate over the concept of a public trust concept and just the nitty-gritty you don’t have to read all that thing but what that means is you have state and federal agencies that have the responsibility to look after resources that belong to all of you and the reason we have that in this country is because when we were revolting against England many years ago uh over there only the rich people and all the land bearen owned all the resources they owned the land all fish and wildlife belong to those powerful people and when our forefathers created the United States of America they said we don’t quite like that model so we’d like to change a little bit so that everybody gets a piece of the action and I.E they made all the resources fish wildife air and lot many of the lands public which means you all have a St our goal for the Nebraska gate Parks Commission is uh intimately involved with natural resources in the state of Nebraska for the Missouri River our goal is to restore protect and maintain the diversity of histroic Missouri River resources and ecosystem functions in order that present future Generations may enjoy that and maybe if you don’t quite understand what all those ecosystem functions are don’t worry about I’ll explain a little bit and hopefully you’ll pick it up this is what the Missouri River looks like in Montana above great fall it’s a cold clear stream it’s outside of the road is probably what Lou and Clark saw when they went Upstream when I was there in uh a few years back uh there were so many trout in the in the river that about every quarter to a half mile in the summer people were out there with their fly rods and spinning reels catching trout it’s a real popular area lots of resources to enjoy uh caning kaying Al also all those other activities great fall of mon many of you probably heard this is one of the great portages of the ls and Clark expedition but now right above the Falls they put a dam across it right in the city of great fall and so they kind of raised the level a little bit and I think there’s a hyro plant next to but anyway this was the great fall L and Clark would have saw animals like this uh El this was real close to Fort pet the two animals on the left are like four and five point Bulls and the big bow on the right is a royal El seven points on each side uh so this would be one of the Native species of they saw and of course uh consumed along the way the Missouri River has six big dams on it since Lou and Clark they put it in there since 1942 they’ve got for pack in Montana sakaa in North Dakota Hawaii in South Dakota Big B uh Randall in South Dakota and gav point Dam Nebraska this happens to be fourth P it’s the biggest reservoir uh it is basically about 25 to 30 ft down now the river is managed uh and the water is managed for navigation for this river right out here it goes up and down so we got of those six res we got three big ones and then three little ones and the lower most one is the little but these uh reservoirs actually cover up the historic Missouri River of the total approximately 2400 mil in the river about a third of it is under reservoirs like this and a third of it is channelized like you have right out here and a third of it is somewhat in its natural state and I’ll show you picture one of the big uh issues in this day and age is how much water we should leave in the river uh this so happens that these reservoirs are so big that they make a drastic impact but they’ve been lowering the reservoir so that they can put water out here for navigation that’s one of the many purposes they have others uh Power uh water supply navigation Fish Wildlife food control uh generation electricity about a mile Downstream from for Dan there is a uh river called the mil and and it is so turbid uh it almost looks about as brown as that sign right in the back of the room but this is a tributary the water in the Missouri of nowadays is relatively clear compared to what it was during the Lou par uh Expedition the reason it’s clear is because we have the reservoirs the reservoirs trap the sediment on the upper end and they release clean water below the dam and and the Clean Water picks up up set and moves it down stream one of the species of great concern on the river nowadays is the little pal surgeon it’s a native species it’s uh been here forever it’s a prehistoric uh species it’s on the endangered spe species list this is one of the things that a lot of people are concerned about I always tell people well are you really concerned about that species I said yes I am because we do have uh statutory and management responsibilities but we’re really concerned about is what’s causing the decline in species and that’s usually I say endangered species are the canaries in the in the mine they’re indicators that something’s wrong and you you’ll get to hear me talk a little more about that as we go on Fort Randle dam is the second largest stand uh it’s right across the border from Nebraska uh in South Dakota that’s a downstream view pretty much the river looked like this when Lou and Clark uh came up River here’s a down uh Upstream view but on the downstream side of D you see the sediment it’s picking up there’s an there’s a process in the river that’s called aggradation degradation and what it does is the river picks up sediment from the sides and the bottom and deposits them Downstream and then that’s called degradation and the location where the siment is deposited is called aggradation it’s a natural phenomenon Rivers do two things they move water and sent from the mountains to the Sea and of course we’re all kind of in between we talk about the Clear Water below Fort Ram Dam you go there in a boat you can look 3 to 4 ft down in the water you can see real relatively clear and and that’s how about how I’m looking about feet into the water to see the bottom of the CR the 30 uh between U Len Clark Lake and Fort Rand is a Missouri River National record this is the 39 M reach below gav Point D there’s a 59 mile reach call and that’s also part of the national park system uh the lands you see right here I just took these pictures a couple weeks ago these are the same same scenes that L and Clark would have seen as they went upam it’s not real clear you can see it this little Hill right here is old Baldi in boy County R and if you get out on the river you can see it and Clark after after looking at it he said we landed near the foot of round M around M which I saw yesterday resembling a d Captain Le and myself walked up to the top which forms a cult and is about 70 ft higher than the higher lands around the base is about 300 ft and descending this Cupa discovered a village of small animals that Burl in the ground R dogs this is the first time we saw PR but uh this is all on pivate land but if you’re in a boat you can see it about 7 miles below Fort Randall there’s some natural stone and we uh refer to as a spawning bedstone because his strike some of the Native species that run up and down the river and they would spawn on this rock especially pfish soer uh and and strw one of the things Lo clar and Expedition saw was many of these uh big wot WS that came from a tree that just fell in the river it was a common occurrence this happens to be one that is still in the river and it’s at Bo County Line in uh Northern we we just have our agency has a boat ramp right next to it you can see there’s a boat right here but this this root water is so big and uh when it gets in the river it’s not uh it’s not lost it’s a former carbon and it’ll maybe last 100 years but it will slowly Decay away and release its nutrients into the environment of course there’s other things in that 30 to 9 M reach these are National W river section so they have many of the scenic values of of wild Scenic River some of the lands along the way this is actually in the Gras on the south side we’re about 10 or 12 miles down stream you can’t see it very good but the water is still pretty much kind of clear greenish and that’s a difference between came and when what we have in this day and age the water uh usually would be turbid uh historically but now we have some water of a a green clear water just more of the scenes we have some really s uh Banks along the river you really get to feel like you’re in a wild and sea River when you either take a boat or to do that one of the things we’ve done is we’re trying to make the river accessible to people and you know it was only 10 20 years ago everybody was complaining yeah it’s a nice River but we can’t get to it so our agency uh developed a program and put in boat ramps every public boat ramps every 10 to 20 miles and our goal was actually uh one every 2025 so our objective was to get access so people could go out and enjoy the riv sandb barss were a real common feature in the historic Missouri River you can see some of the SES and grasses and risal and little cotton sh uh that they’re part of that aggradation degradation process sandor uh sand formation was really good for Fish A and L and Clark actually camp on quite a few of them you read the termin um right in this general area we’re kind of right below palka State Park uh we’ve got got Eagles that are nesting on the river now these are two young ones that have fled out of the nest and they’re just about ready to fly we also have people fishing for small M baths and we have lots of uh waterf including these Pelicans that bank just happens to be at the Standing Bear Bridge uh going to Nebraska over into uh South Dakota so it is in South Dakota but these these types of banks are historically uh part of the landscape train in L Park would sto I’m sure to look at it and observe I talked about that degradation aggradation process we’re trying to keep this olivan ecosystem and what’s what’s happened is below Fort Randall is that clean water has picked up siment from the sides and the B bottom of the river and moved it Downstream about 30 some miles and stacked it up on the upper end of L and Clark Lake and so this is all that siment that’s been in the river kind of just been uh packed in there for about 50 years now here’s the mouth of the N right here and it dumps about 55% of the siment into the Missouri River and the sediment is coming from the the watered even though the N River has a lot of grasslands and everything it still provides about 55% of the siment into the Missouri and and the rest of siment is coming from a couple tributaries up in this area uh and also the river proper ofour talked about that sediment here’s I was up there on a sunny day you can see the siment coming in this would be a view from P St Park

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Mary Jane Charlo on Salish Animals and Culture

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:50 +0000

go we’ve been traveling since January of 2003 started in monachello and so we’ve made it here to Hamilton and uh it’s been a great reception here so far so thank you very much lots to do and see we have our exhibit tent over here replicas of the keelboat The Dugout and the proges um we are joined by our federal Partners the Bureau of Land Management with their little white tent uh the US forest service over there um the National Guard back behind us with their camouflage tent hope you can find that so anyway um please walk around and take it all in and enjoy yourselves and enjoy the fair the tent of many voices this tent was a place designed to uh bring in different people of professional backgrounds and cultures to share with us their knowledge and wisdom as it relates directly and sometimes indirectly with the lwis and Clark and Expedition and so for this hour I’d like to welcome Mary Jane Charlo uh she is the native Adventures manager and member of the um Salish cut tribe and so I’m going to let her tell you more about um the native Adventures program and she’s going to be talking about Lewis and Clark animals so let’s welcome Mary Jane to our stage good afternoon um I work at the people Center I don’t know if you know what that is it’s the cultural visitors center for the Confederate Salish and cutney tribes on the Flathead reservation which is north of Missoula uh Native Adventures is a tourism program for the tribes and that’s what I do I schedule tours tours and set up trips for group large groups and small groups and it’s pretty much wide open depending on on the person on what they want to do and how long they want to stay what I’m going to do today is Give the names and Salish of these animals hi Mary give the names of the animals in Salish and then do the sign language for them okay I’ve been I’ve been learning the sign language for about three four years since I finished a class with Johnny AR Le one of our cultural uh teachers up on the reservation I took a cultural leadership class with him for two years it was a two-year class and it was teaching the about the culture and the history through language okay through the Salish language one of the ways that he taught us the language and different words and how how to speak and stuff I’m not fluent by any means one of the ways was he talked sign language while he spoke the Salish so you were able to comprehend more what he was saying without the English kind of like being in Stuck in the Middle there um so that’s where I started learning about the animals my granddaughter who was who’s 11 years old we just finished doing the explore the Big Sky and Great Falls and she worked with me for 5 days straight 7 hours a day doing this okay she was supposed to come today but her cousin from Minnesota showed up she hadn’t seen her cousin all summer and it was her cousin’s birthday today so she ditched out on me so I’ll do this by myself okay so we’ll just start from this end oh let’s get this one down here I don’t have all of the puppets and I don’t have all of the sign language for them but most of them I do when you’re speaking sign language all of the sign hi R hey there’s my cousin there’s like all the sign language takes part right in between your waist and your neck this is the hand that is kind of like your base you use it for measuring and you use it for this hand to do the action on you know so right in between here and here unless it’s something specifically where you would use like today like that or this afternoon so like this hand you you’d use this hand on it going like evening and morning like this okay so I’ll start with the signs here okay this one is the black bear and flamp Cat and okay the sign for that black bear is his little round ears that’s what it is okay that and here we have a little black bear right okay the sign for that one is little black bear okay this M mahuya what is it yeah some participation here okay the sign for raccoon I take my I could see better if I put this over my glasses this is a mahuya his banded eyes and what do you think it is for little mahuya right little mahuya okay this one is the grizzly bearin we have a sound in our language that comes from your throat it’s written as an X in the international alphabet can you it’s just expelling air from your throat okay the sign for the grizzly bear is two signs it could be this one because they Mark the territory scratching trees or this so some okay this one okay this one is the one I have a hard time remembering all of them okay we don’t have the adult deer the Bucks and we don’t have the adult do we have the little deer so that just starts me out on on the black tail or the mule deer the the buck is pu pu for a mu there okay um how many of you hunt okay you know the difference between a mule deer and a white tail okay mule deer’s horns spread out they spread so this is a sign for the for the male black tail pu pu the male white tail got that X in there again A W sound is the white tail curved forward okay the black tailed D is St big ears the white tail D is because when they turn around they run they’re flagging their tail a danger okay the elk we don’t have an elk but the bull elk is tet and that’s just like a big like this tett and the cow SN well easy to remember okay don’t have the sign language for this but everybody knows what this is anyways this is um St everybody knows what this one is this one has all of our animals and all of um all of our animals you all have stories for all of them and in our creation stories animals came before people people which is when I was working with a lot of kids and and I always like to tell them our creation stories parallel with angl Christian Christianity you know animals came first right okay and people always say trying to say well leis and Clark followed old Indian Trails you know our elders say well actually they were animal Trails the animals knew the quickest and easiest routes to get somewhere you know they didn’t go over the highest mountain and all the way down the deepest valleys you know they were smarter than that so actually Le and Clark followed animal trails and this this little uh animal here has human traits you know like when somebody is nervous and they start to fidget you know their their foot’s going or or the they cut are going like this like this okay same thing this one does too when it starts fidgeting I think you’ve been there too long when you notice that when his little feet start going up and down that’s when you know you should have been gone okay everybody knows a sign for this Quai what’s the sign for this tatonka yeah I got it back there Tatanka remember universal sign with Indians tatonka okay this one here is what a horse good you’re so smart okay this one is a hard onea Sasa okay sign for that very easy you got this hand to do the movement on this is the horse that and I have a story about this one I don’t know what the sign language is for the name for this one is quick J okay okay the story with this little animal is that there was a young man who was considered slow you know like this story teaches people about every little thing every person no matter how seemingly unimportant has a place and a reason to be there so the story about this little animal starts with the young man who was considered slow you know he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the young men and he couldn’t run and play with them hunt ride horses or whatever and so he was always left behind and he spent a lot of time alone so one day while he was out alone and he kind of wandered back and he found realized everybody in the camp had left all the camps were gone and he he had no idea where they went you know and then he could hear some someone crying like sobbing and someone was crying like they their heart was broken he wandered down through the trees and there was this teepee he went inside the teepee and he peaked in the door and what he seen looked like with the back to him was like an old woman and she was crying her heart out and he asked her grandmother why are you crying you know and he asked her is there something I can do for you and she says my children they’re gone she said I I I kept them in a in our house in the chief’s pillow you know and so they’re all gone and he says well we can follow them you know it’s easy to follow them we’ll follow the trail and the old lady wanted him just to go get the children so he took off he followed the trail and as he walked along you know they could pretty easy follow because of travo and dragging the PO horses Footprints all kinds of different ways to follow the the trail and when he found them it was getting towards night time and it was getting dark and he found the chief’s teepee and he went into it you know cuz remember like he wasn’t like right on the ball with everything so this is something you don’t do if the door’s closed you know you don’t just walk into a teepee if there’s a door closed on there it means that you know you it’s it’s private or you know you’re supposed to let him know you’re there so he opened the door and he walked in and he was standing over there looking at the Chief and the chief was laying there he was sleeping the chief you know you wake when you when someone’s looking at you especially if you’re sleeping you’re going to wake up you know and he he woke up and he looked at this young man who was standing there over looking over him and he’s going uh what do you want and the young man said uh can I dig in your pillow and the chief goes well sure go ahead there’s nothing in there and so the young man dug inside the pillow and he found the babies and they were in like a little nest and he started leaving the chief asked did you find what you want he goes yes I did and he went all the way back and he found the the grandmother and he told her grandmother I found your children and she was so happy you know and she had tears coming down she was so joyful and he goes here they are he goes I don’t know if they’re all there because I didn’t know how many you had you know and she’s so happy and she counts the mom goes they’re all here and she said for this I’ll give you a a a great reward you know and what she told him what she gave him uh the gift that she gave him gave him a great ability all the young men whenever he went out on raiding party Hunting Party or whatever wanted to go with him they wanted to accompany him when the reason for that was the little mouse gave him the power to go in places and not be seen and to leave the same way so that’s the one of the story about the mouse do you like it okay everybody is all just really listening okay okay this one is messed up okay my what big teeth you have okay what is it okay it’s a wolf okay this is easy and seen andsen when you say the word cats the on the end cat okay anden that’s the sound that’s in in this word and seen is the wolf okay let me think I remember the oh yeah okay this is a sign for Wolf okay you change it slightly to it changes to Hunter all right okay and this is the wolf’s little brother coyote okay we call him Cula Cula to us is a real important person in in our cultural in our like histor histor historical stories our creation stories and everything you um and the beginning create I can’t tell coyote stories because we’re not supposed to tell them in the summer months until after the first snowfall and stop talking about him after the first Thunder but um in our creation stories uh long time before people were even here um there were spirits you know and people might think of them as U uh God or or whatever you know but there were Spirits out there and they created animals and the and God we call God or kultin or whatever people call everybody every culture has a name for God all right but cre the spirits um decided that they were going to have people so they created the animals first and they told these animals we’re creating you and we’re putting you on Earth because man is coming and he’s going to be born naked and he’s not going to know anything he’s not going to take care of himself and he’s not going to know anything so you’re going to be put on the earth to help him okay how do these animals help us all right everybody always heard stories about people going out seeking vision you know fasting and praying for 4 days or however days you know and and they get a vision and some people says it’s delirium you know and whatever you know but you know I believe in my tradition traditional ways and I believe you know we had our ways way before you know all of a lot of other things came along and I I believe in him and one of the one of the ways this Al also will teach you about something else that we do drumming and singing okay dancing and drumming and singing are very important in our culture you know we still carry that on today in pow all right we dance and we sing like how one question I like to ask to ask kids is um how many of you read the Bible okay how many of you have read the Bible okay quite a few okay I read the Bible I was uh on fireborn Christian door door evangelism at one time um I don’t do it anymore but um in the Old Testament it talked about David dancing before the Lord he’s dancing before the Lord naked you know what was he doing he was praising God wasn’t he okay you can draw that similarity with our dancing and our singing okay those songs were given to us by Spirits when somebody gets a song you know like you thinking of and they go seek a vision they seek counsel and they’re given a song song song makers and singers are very special that’s communicating between this world and that world okay people say we got a song of who’s your helper okay a number of animals could be the helper they received a song their helper could be from the wind or from the I have a very close friend her her song comes from the sound of melting ice you know water so there’s a lot of different things you know so with this uh little animal in the beginning of creation he was known as trickster he’s very important and who is he you know when you think about it and the the analogies drawn you know he’s us he’s he’s the foolish person who’s always done the things that he wish he didn’t do you know you know that’s that’s who this guy is and other times he’s so smart you know and he is cunning most the time it doesn’t end up in a good way because that’s who he is you know but that’s just an explanation of songs and animals trying to draw that kind of give you an idea about singing and dancing and connection between animals all animals have different traits for instance like this your animal here spell turtle okay I have a daughter that just really loves Turtles she’s 22 years old on her dance outfit she has all kinds of different little turtles that she’s received during the years on her belt I made her a turtle bag and in the middle of it it has a heart and I I told her the reason I made her that bag is because this animal stands for wisdom longevity and strength okay no matter what happens you know you heard about race between the hair and the turtle you know you just keep trying and you don’t give up okay and so on that bag on her back was that turtle and there was a heart on there because a turtle has a very strong heart you can try to kill it and they say his heart will just keep beating and beating and beating and also like because I love her I’ve also put a heart on it so there’s a lot of different reasons you know people make things for like their relatives or someone they care for and you’ll see goes oh that looks kind of crazy I wonder what that is for you know but there’s usually a good reason for it so this is SP and the sign for him is this then his little head coming in and up right and for some reason I can’t remember the name for snake but this is a an simple that need there’s something else too like with sign language if you want to ask a question is simply depending on the circumstances for instance if I was sitting in this chair Mary and I were sitting in this chair and we knew everybody that was in the room somebody walks in that’s a stranger you know and we see that person walk in together and I might go like this to her that means so what who who is it you know or if you’re buying something this is like talking for buying okay if you’re buying something and you really like it and you go quinch how much see so this is always the question or you might you might see somebody you as a you know I might see you walk in and get happy to see you but you’re over there and I go you know and go how are you you go good that okay this one here scal scal L scal what is it okay he’s got little teeth okay we know what that is okay sign language for that put your hand out okay why right he’s when he gets alarmed he slaps the water with his tail Dives they all dive down underwater to go into the into the house okay this is a frog I just learned this one I didn’t know the name of this was a very good sign for this one this has a sound in it called bardel okay put your tongue behind your front teeth and blow air out the sides kids can do it easy if you tell them go they they can do it pretty okay so this one is slam SL SL SL slam SL slam SL frog okay sign language for frog that’s easy it’s good okay and this sne sne real easy one this big eyes okay this is an interesting sign with this one this is not very easy to say man’s best friend okay a long time ago our dogs man’s best friend I don’t think we’re that loyal because they were wolves they were kind of like tamed they hung around you fed them you know and the dogs are called and Q sound comes out of your throat and kosam okay that was D dog sign for dog the Travoy used to tie on to the dog before we had horses so that’s sign for dog we were really glad to get horses you know you P put all your packed your stuff on one of these and he got to smell up his nose that he want to investigate he was gone so we were really glad to get horses okay this one here Mountain line okay this one here that’s a little one okay little te me out okay what’s the sign for Mountain line like a cat nose okay you make the cat nose and then the eye is watching because he’s always watching okay and we don’t have a bobcat but the B sign for Bobcat is also the same sign for house cat just push your nose up a little bit on the end that’s Bobcat or house cat all right this that’s a hard one it has that s with the X sound and a K on the end okay we all know what that is right it’s not a reindeer okay okay so moose okay sign for moose okay what else I think I’ve gone through my stuff okay are the oh this doesn’t have anything to do with my side language but here are posters um Tony and CA asked me to work with the Lewis and Clark commission and Clinton Blackwood came to me uh but about a year ago or two years ago and said he’s getting a little concerned because there was no participation from the Salish and so I said well they probably don’t want to celebrate LS and Clark because of the what came after you know it was not happy but um I told them what they would celebrate though would be if they wanted the Indians come down and have a celebration it would have to be an Indian celebration you know and I knew they wouldn’t the elders wouldn’t go for celebrating l Clark but what this PA is for is we have banded together with the ls and Clark B Centennial commission the circle of tribal advisers Sula and Darby ranger district and aerate Chamber of Commerce to put this power on and what this is for celebrating the diplomacy the hospitality and the generosity of Salish okay in this picture this picture was done by Jesse Henderson it was like $45,000 it’s hanging in I forget where it’s hanging in Helena but it shows Chief three eagles who is one of my ancestors um Charlo they the L goes from tanak before three eagles and three eagles then Victor then Chief charot then Martin and then my father Tony but it shows them here you know it’s called offering of the great clearing and so we welcome them we took care of them and traded them horses is what they had in the journal but our elders say no Sint Indian would have traded for those horses you know we gave them our horses and put them out to pasture in the journals it says we they traded for excellent saish horses so what this is going to be is not exactly a reenactment of that meeting but the whole idea behind it is for visitors to come and be welcomed by the Salish again in the bitat valley 200 years later for everybody open to the public and what we’re going to be doing there is Grand entry will be start Friday night at 7:00 it’s all free camping’s free you know you don’t have to pay anything to get in and there are going to be arts and craft vendors food vendors and Native guided po out tours that’s what I do back home as we have native guides take people through the PA explain the dancing and explain whatever is going on there you know and and help them so they can participate and become part of the celebration instead of just like somebody watching standing back watching on the outside okay and so that’s what we’ll be doing on the first night and also there’ll be viewing of uh Johnny AR Le’s video the L and Clark expedition meet the saor and Ponder Indians that was funded by loose and Clark Grant on Saturday we’ll start with the grand entry with the snake dance okay a lot of our names were given to a lot of our different things in English have nothing to do with they about what they really are okay like the snake dance has given that name has nothing to do with snakes you know what the snake dance it’s called that probably because in English when they danced in they came in this way in line dancing in okay what the snake dance represents is like a victory dance you know it’s a Warrior dance a long time ago way before Horses The Warriors would come back if they returned it was successful you know they would come in they would be tired starving you know they would be WIP pretty much wiped out they’d be staggered into Camp you know and the camp would be welcoming but they would be coming in like this and so what you see on this the only time we do it is Fourth of July celebration it’s the biggest celebration up on the reservation you have hundreds of dancers coming in for a snake dance on that and it’s very exciting okay we have I got permission from the elders to do it down here in uh Sula you know so that’s going to be something extra special to see and we’ll have the I think the I’m not sure if that happened yet do you know if they’re going to have that veterans ceremony okay we’ll have a veterans honoring C Cy right after that grand entry and then there’ll be dancing contest dancing and drumming and singing and then the welcoming ceremony is open to all visitors to participate and what we do we have what we call a giveaway dance and it’s a round dance where whoever’s having the giveaway is in the center and they give to whoever’s dancing because remember the dancing is like a really good thing to be doing when you go to Pawa you here the announcer will say everybody get up and dance you know get up and dance for those that can’t dance for those that have passed away and for those who are coming you know so dancing is very important to us so whoever comes down and dances with us you know will be honored and also at that same time we’ll have the loose and clarky and actors come out and be part of that and then about 5:00 we’ll have a buffalo feed none of this is is you know you’re not getting charged for any of this and then later on that at night we’ll have start again at 7 and then we will uh uh continue with the dancing and the drumming and and have uh I think we’re having Clint Clint’s going to stand up and say some words too Clint Blackwood uh is he called the director or the chair chairman of the Montana anyway he’s the head loose and clar guy for Montana but U so that’s going on September 9th and 10th if you wish you can come and get one of these posters to remind you if you wanted to go are there any questions anyone have any questions for Mary Jane all oh we got one over here hang on let me bring this over so everyone can hear when will that event it’s the 9th and 10th but it’s here in the bitteroot but where Sula grab a poster I don’t know am I hooked on to something here any other questions oh Eagle did we get the eagle the eagle sorry okay you were watching mil ands milk ands yeah okay easy sign just that’s we have two kinds of eagles the bald eagle and the golden eagle okay what Johnny told me in the class was the golden eagle is mainly the ones is the one that has to do with Indians more so than the bald eagle because the bald eagle is the one you always see like sitting up by himself you know all solitary the golden eagle you know if you’re watching you will see him in there with the animals you know and there’s different stories and pictures coyote stories of of a golden eagle sitting there surrounded by animals and they’re holding a council you know they’re have making decisions and stuff but any other ones any other questions all right well let’s thank Mary Jane for coming and sharing with us

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Germaine White on Salish perspectives of Lewis and Clark

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:35:49 +0000

good afternoon everyone and welcome to the tent of many voices the tent of many voices is part of the core of Discovery 2 traveling L and Clark exhibit it’s a multi- agency Federal exhibit the lead agency being the National Park Service as I said it’s a traveling exhibit it started back back in January of 2003 he’s been traveling since then and will travel through 2006 during the four years of the bicentennial the Lewis and Clark expedition what we do hear in the ten many voices as we bring in a wide variety of presenters to share with us different perspectives different voices both voices and perspectives on the leis and Clark expedition and voices and perspectives from those various American Indian nations that have been living there for thousands of years before Lewis and Clark came along and this afternoon we’re going to hear from Germaine white who part of the confederated tri Salish in Cuttin tribes and she’s going to share some of the history of her people and their connection to the Lewis and Clark expedition so let’s please give Germaine a warm welcome to the tenam many voices thank you so much I’m delighted to be here today to visit with you a little bit about a tribal perspective on the Louis and Clark expedition uh as many of you know much that’s uh known about the Lewis and Clark expedition has been written but for the tribal perspective so today I’d like to share with you a little bit um of information that was told to us by our elders who heard from their ancestors these stories so our Story begins on September 4th 1805 a large band of Salish indans was camped at a place called culi a large Gathering Place we now know it as Ross’s hole in the bitet valley um on that day the people were gathering choke cherries because it was fall it was September that was the time to gather choke cherries and and pound them and dry them and prepare them for the for the winter stores of food the people were camped there not only were they Gathering choke cherries but they were also pasturing their fine horses on the Abundant grasses That Grew right there in the High Valley at the base of the pentler mountains there were over 30 camps over 400 people and over that number of horses that were there at that time it was a wonderful time of warm days and cold nights in that High Valley at the base of the pintlers in the bitet valley while the people were camped there a few days prior the scouts had seen a group approaching they brought the information back and there was discussion about this this band of Travelers that were clearly strangers they appeared to be a defeated war party they um they looked as if they were ill and they were hungry they were very pale um their me many of their horses were lame um and there was a great deal of discussion among the leaders uh among the elders and the leaders of the tribe about whether or not they constituted a threat to the well-being of the people and should be eliminated there were those many of those in the camp that said look at them they’re ill they’re wandering around they’re lost um they present a threat to the wellbeing of the people there were those among the Salish that said look at them they’re pitiful they’re lost they’re hungry their animals are lame they’re pitiful we need to help them they’re strangers they’re passing through this much they knew about them there was a great deal of discussion and it was decided by the leaders and the elders that they would provide them assistance now in most non- indan accounts of History that’s where the history of Montana begins however um Lewis and Clark were entering a world much older than they could have ever possibly imagined they were entering a world where people had lived uh a happy and contented life where they had uh subsisted on the natural Bounty of the landscape around them there really was no opportunity for them to understand the depth of relationship between people and the landscape um what Lewis and Clark entered what that band entered at that time reaches back to the very earliest beginnings of human history on this landscape most of the most of our stories tell about the making of This Place fit for humans who are yet to come our traditional stories are coyote stories and they tell about um the land form that were made about the resources that were there um and most of those places have Salish names linguists say that these names are the oldest names in our language in in English we call them archaic words uh some examples are Philips Berg we no longer use Berg in common English um it’s a remnant of an of an archaic word we don’t use Stevensville or we still say Stevensville for a town on the west side but we no longer use Vil in common language so place names are the oldest words in our language and they describe the landscape and the tribe’s relationship with the landscape there are places like timum in the bitet valley or no salmon a place that we now know as L um there’s another place in the bitat valley like Umi um the great Gathering Place or Ross’s hole um another place in the bitet valley that um that has a place name describes a coyote story um um it’s the place of the sleeping child or sleeping child Hot Springs now um it’s interesting because many of these place names uh describe a very ancient landscape and um the coyote stories talk about um about the seasonal uh battled between warm and cold and the final establishment of the seasonal regimes we know now and most it it’s curious because most of the stories that are told um very closely remember excuse me very closely resemble the geological um formations uh the ice age glacier Lake Missoula um and the final seasonal regimes we know now the animals that we have presently most archaeologists date that time to about uh 10 to 12,000 years before present um interestingly enough there’s there’s been a significant amount of archaeological excavation done at the Confluence of the Clark’s fork and the Flathead River really in the heart of our homeland and those um those test sites have also been dated to about 10 to 12,000 years so for Salish people this was a landscape that um that the Explorers entered that tribal people had had a relationship with for a very long period of time and I think that maybe the uh Expedition had no way of really understanding that that relationship between people in place um in in many ways um the early descriptions of the landscape that um the Expedition entered was called a Wilderness you know sometimes they describe it as a virgin Wilderness and actually it was um it was not a Wilderness it was a land that was occupied and that was known by the people it was um it was known quite intimately and the stories that we have really talk about um as I said how long we’ve been here and the depth of relationship and the understanding of the landscape um lots of folks in Montana have been here multi-generations lived on the Family Farm And and understand about what it’s like to to Noah place for multiple Generations but for Salish people their relationship with the bitet valley was really um closer to 10 or 12,000 years of relationship so sometimes we hear Lewis and Clark called um the core of Discovery and they were really less discovering than entering a very old landscape um the the landscape they encountered was abundant and it was presti it was a landscape that um that I think early explorers couldn’t understand in many ways um because they really felt that the the people they encountered there just didn’t have the sophisticated technology to destroy the landscape where in reality tribal values are for maintenance of a landscape um we’re taught from the very earliest ages yet today to never take more than we need to never waste anything we take and always ensure that there’s an abundance for future generations and in that way tribal people for thousands of years lived a sustainable um a sustainable way of life on the land the Salish people um that lived in the bitup valley are the most interior band of Salish speaking people at one time we were a very large Salish family there were there were many tribes and we lived in the entire Northwest of the United States over time as our numbers grew in order not to exceed the resources on the land more bands traveled further and further apart but for us the most interior band of Salish speaking people we have many relatives that live to the west of us toward the coast so there are Spokan cordelan Callis spels um uh calval okan aans and many other Salish speaking people the territory we occupied was an extraordinary large territory so not only did the people have experience on the land of great time depth we also had experience on the land in a very extensive um region of the um region of the Northwest the tribes followed a a seasonal way of life they gathered the abundance of the land that was available um we gathered beginning in the spring our earliest food was bitot followed by cus um in the summer we visited friends and celebrated and picked berries and dried them and stored them for future use we also um had fall hunts um over into the um over into these areas into the into the plains part of the state um into the Great Falls area into this the Three Forks area there were winter camps that were based there as well so the tribes had an extraordinarily long time depth and Al also a very vast expanse of territory they had a relationship with so Lewis and Clark when they stumbled into were really um were less than discoverers they were really visitors for a very short period of time and I like to talk about the time depth of people um because it really for us it puts the Louis and Clark expedition it it helps us put the Lewis and Clark expedition in a tribal in a tribal perspective so if you think about um let’s imagine 12,000 years of occupancy on the land and imagine that as a 24-hour day and take that 10 that 10 to 12,000 years wrap it around a clock for um for a 24-hour day what that means is that uh Columbus arrived at about 10:59 p.m. on that day in the in the world of the Salish people and Lewis and Clark arrived at about midnight so um there was a great deal of time that that that the tribes had in this place before the Expedition and a great deal of history in the state um in in our region before the visitors and strangers came Among Us in the period just preceding the Expedition there were significant changes there were changes that happened rapidly and dramatically one of the first changes that happened was between the 1600s and the 1700s and that was the introduction of horse we acquired from um from our occasional allies to the south of us the shishoni people and um it had a profound impact in our way of life we were one of the first people in this in this region to have horse and it extraordinarily expanded our territory our Mobility our ability to hunt our ability to um to continue our way of life it was an extraordinary uh benefit to the people to have to have horse and natur naturally our enemies the black feet to the north of us had not acquired a horse yet so if you think about the power differential among among people that um occasionally had conflicts over um over competing resources um when you imagine that um Salish people had horse before any of the people in the the region the power differential was tipped way in favor of the Salish people as I said it provided greater Mobility um easier access to Buffalo to hunting um and all of the other foods and materials that we needed um however because it expanded the territory it meant that there was greater conflict between tribes and as they competed over resources in lands that were overlapping Aboriginal territory so about the time that this extraordinary gift the horse arrived among us there was also something else that that came Among Us that had a very different impact um as I said there um the people lived a life that was rich with the abundance but rarely did they have contact with strangers so and so they had not acquired immunity to European diseases and smallpox arrived and particularly small poox among all of the diseases had a devastating effect among the people some people say that five to seven out of every eight people died in a camp as a result of small poox historic um demographers say that about it at by about 1,800 the numbers of Salish people declined from perhaps 40,000 to anywhere between 15 and 5,000 it was a sign it had a profound impact but it it didn’t just impact the Salish people it impacted people all across um all across the the Northwest and all across the region because we lived in communities that were very homogeneous we we lived together we didn’t abandon um our ill or our elderly and um we lived in community so what happened was that when disease came into the community it spread like wildfire it’s just like um when my when my daughters were at home it seemed like one of the girls would bring home um the flu just after school started and then my second daughter would get the flu and then pretty soon their father would get the flu and then you know they’d all be up and on their feet and i’ get the flu well mercifully we’re able to sustain um we’re able to get by even though we we get occasional flu but with small pox there was really no resistance and the people died in huge numbers more than more than the people could grieve and bury individually it it had a profound devastating effect on the tribes um one of the other significant changes that happened during this time just prior to the expedition was um an interesting part of History Hudson Bay established um I’m trying to remember the name of the fort some of you historians probably know this Buckingham house on the Saskatchewan River at about 1870 and um prior to that time people had learned about um about non- indan people they knew that there were that there were white people but very few of our people before Lewis and Clark had had Direct experience with with non-native peoples the Hudson Bay Company um had a profound effect on us at Buckingham house because they began to trade Firearms with the black feet people our traditional enemies as a consequence of our um conflict over competing resources in territory it was um it sign significantly shifted the power differential again because when they acquired Firearms nearly 10 to 20 years before us that had a dramatic effect so there were there were huge impacts and enormous changes to the tribal World um the Lewis and Clark Expedition was sent by as many of you know sent by President Thomas Jefferson and he stated that um in the instructions he gave to Maryweather Lewis President Jefferson said the object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River and to find the best water route to the Pacific Ocean for the purposes of Commerce so these guys were really on a business trip they they came looking like a military Expedition but they were really on a business trip and they were there to catalog and prepare to appropriate tribal resources so for many tribal people the arrival of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the subsequent changes that occurred after that are really a dark part of our tribal history um they established a groundwork uh the the groundwork for um significant changes that happened to tribal people um and a fundamentally different way of life that resulted from um from all of the changes that came after the core of discovery and I I don’t mean to disparage any great American Heroes but I really do want to provide what I believe is a balanced and honest and accurate telling of the story uh the story that remains to be told and that’s that’s the tribal perspective um the the Salish people were were really unaware of the Louis and Clark expedition’s full objectives um it it was difficult for them to know um the Explorers spoke English they had french-speaking interpreters The Interpreter spoke one of the interpreters spoke to his wife who understood French and spoke shason and there was a small boy among the Salish that spoke shason and he translated the shishoni to Salish so imagine what happened when communication went through that many iterations of of translation I I’m guessing that very little was understood very um I I would guess that there was significant miscommunication and and great misunderstanding among the people um the results might have been very different in terms of misunderstanding one of the one of the greatest misunderstandings I think occurred when the Expedition arrived and um and the people offered them blankets they had no blankets they appeared to be cold their skin was kind of blue and and white and so they offered them blankets and when the Expedition arrived they they put them down on the ground and sat on them and the people were very confused because they had offered these gifts to them and and they chose to sit on them it was kind it was one of the first examples of of communication but miscommunication but as I said the people had had determined that they would be that they would be generous to these um to these strangers that appeared to be lost so um the Expedition clearly had um had need of horses and we had an abundance of of beautiful what um what Clark described as elegant horses um the stock was exhausted some of them were lame and so the Expedition gave them uh seven horses in exchange for um 10 or 12 of The Elegant horses that the Salish people had they also um and this is going to be really important to the Louis and Clark expedition a little bit further on down trail um they didn’t know the trail so so they were provided an escort they were um they were shown on to the over L pass to go and meet among the nest Pur people um the Salish also gifted the Lewis and Clark Expedition with value food stores that had taken countless hours to prepare they gave them dried meat they gave them Roots they gave them berries they gave them food that would sustain them and it would take countless hours to replace them as well as the hides they were given um to keep themselves warm on their trip over the pass as they began traveling over the past they um they encountered every hardship That Could Be Imagined as as the Explorers said um William Clark or excuse me uh Lewis wrote after his return um most fortunately on our way within the mountains we met with a traveling band of they were Salish people going to the plains of the Missouri in quest of Buffalo and obtained from them an accession of seven horses to our former stock exchanging at the same time 10 or 12 to Great Advantage this ultimately proved of infinite service to us as we were compelled to subsist on horse beef and dogs previous to our arrival in the in the navigable navigable part of the cus cusi I have not the Leisure at this moment to State all those difficulties which we encountered in our passage over these mountains suffice it to say we suffered every Everything cold hunger and fatigue could impart so clearly the um the horses that were gifted to them were of huge benefit um not just for transportation but but for food as well as they traveled Clark also echoed the words of of Lewis at about this time I want to make sure that I leave plenty of time for us to discuss this um this encounter between the Salish people in the Lewis and Clark expedition I’m I’m just going to conclude by saying that many of the leaders were um were greatly um angered and and hurt by the subsequent events that happened um the after the um leis and Clark expedition there was a a a great concern that the kindness of the people had been exploited the welcoming and the generosity of the people had been um uh had been used and the people had been had been treated somewhat um somewhat badly this was a an ancient landscape and the people had had a great um relationship with the land and a and a huge fondness for the land and yet um there was clear misunderstanding and miscommunication I believe what our ancestors offered the Lewis and Clark Expedition was really an opportunity for respectful coexistence that that they knew the strangers were there they knew the strangers were passing through and they wanted they wanted to help them provide them some assistance and and hopefully provide that promise of of a way um another way of interacting with the people um when I was first asked to serve as a representative for the tribes and provide a tribal perspective on the Lewis and Clark expedition I met with our tribal elders and I asked them um what I should say and and what I should tell the people and at first they said you know this this isn’t a celebration for us this is not something that we really want to participate in this is not um these people to us were not great Heroes um it this was the beginning of an opening to our to our land that um this was the beginning of the cataloging of our resources and appropriation of those resources um and they talked among themselves and some of those said nope we’re not going to have anything to do with it and the others said think of our children think think of what they will learn think about what they will know if if our story isn’t told so the elders sat down and worked many countless hours and told the stories that they knew they told hundreds of hours of of stories and those stories were recorded and a a draft was prepared and um the elders have just released and the culture committee has just released this book The Salish people in the Lewis and Clark expedition it’s um it’s really um a telling of the of the tribal story thank you and if anyone has any questions for Germaine please raise your hand I’ll bring the microphone around so everybody gets a chance to hear them does anybody have any questions hi I I’m sorry I came late the could Salish now have a good oral history program don’t they yes and the second part of that question is if they do does the communal memory and tradition of of Storytelling go back far enough to the Louis and Clark expedition thanks that’s such a great question it reminds me of something that I left off that I had hoped to speak about um the tribe formed a cultural committee um approximately 30 years ago there were a group of middle-aged people in the in the mid 70s that were very concerned about the loss of language culture history and and many of them had been raised by traditional grandparents and what they knew was that their children um and their grandchildren were not able to communicate unate with their with the grandparents that the older people spoke Salish the young children spoke English and there was a huge disconnect so the middle-aged this group of middle-aged people that was very concerned and that that were fluent language speakers asked the elders to come to a meeting and ask the elders for guidance and Direction and said what shall we do we’re things are changing we’re we’re afraid for our children they’re losing their language and their history and um the elders came together and they expressed an extraordinary sense of gratitude they said we’ve been carrying the burden of these stories um and have have looked for somebody to pass them on to and we we have these stories that were given to us by our elders that was given to them by their ancestors and we’re we continue to carry them but we don’t see we they hadn’t seen anybody to pass them on to so it was a wonderful Nexus between um between the Middle people and the elders and some very bright individual and I don’t know who it is but some Visionary um chose to bring a tape recorder to the meeting and turn it on so we have approximately a thousand hours of recorded oral history interviews by Elders that you know many of them left us just after after that time so um we’ve got uh about a th000 hours of songs about a th000 hours of oral history so when we began this this project not only did we um look at the oral history tapes that the taped interviews but we also met with the elders we have today in terms of time depth most of those older Elders had parents or grandparents that had lived during a time um before there was there was significant non-tribal contact so at that time the stories were very intact and we have we have many hours of coyote stories that tell about the the formation of the place the um all of the um the resources the landmarks um how the animals came to be in incredible stories so we have um a rich Archive of information great question oh and and just to answer your last question some of the elders have have commented on what what they generally call openings um what it is when the tribal when someone comes comes into tribal land and there’s a consequent change in in the traditional way of life Pete beaverhead said I believe it was in the mid ’70s Pete beaverhead said um they hadn’t even seen our land yet and already they hadd taken it um Mitch small salmon said um they came and they set Flags down on our land and claimed it and yet it was already occupied so um there was there were some early accounts of of what happened when early strangers came into Salish territory and did we have any other questions y all right Jermaine um could you um comment on the the book by uh Peter Ronan who was a traitor around I guess around the turn of the 20th century uh and which he talked about his time living with the SES and and particularly he said that there had been that that William Clark had fathered a child with this Anish woman and is that a story that’s ongoing within the tribe was that a new book that is a story that’s talked about um um yes there um one of the one of the culture committee staff said something about Louis and Clark were the first deadbeat dads they um left a child behind that they did not provide for and the Salish people did raise that child and we have a picture of um his grandchild in in the book as well um sakal Clark Jermain can you talk about uh land ownership I mean there were territories amongst the other tribes you were competing but what was the concept of owning land and land ownership in in traditional times there wasn’t a sense of ownership we had a relationship with a landscape that was really very intimate it was not um uh you know I’m guessing it’s a lot like people that have had multi-generational Farms you know they they take care of it because it was given to them by their parents or grandparents and they hope to pass it on to their children um the land ownership or the relationship between s people in the land was really um a very reciprocal relationship it was um it was based on reciprocity and um there was a great deal of abundance that was offered to the people but it was all held communally and um we as I said at one time we were a very large band of Salish speaking people and um we had primary camps um along the Flathead River we had primary camps in the bitup valley we had a primary Camp uh along the Sun River um in the Three Forks area um there were there were um at one time there were both um plateau and plains Salish people so we were on on both sides of the Divide um and you know in um in ecological terms we talk about um we talk about those areas um those biosystems where two different Landscapes come together like wetlands and and you know grasslands or something like that and and for us and those are extraordinarily rich in complex landscapes for Salish people we lived at the backbone of the world we lived at the very beginning of the water we lived at the very beginning of the resources and we lived on both sides of the Divide so we hunted bison um like PLS people we gathered Roots like Plateau people um it it was um you know it was like a SM boorg we took the we took the um an abundance we we took from the abundance that was all around us um and and we um felt a great deal of uh people knew the landscape the elders lament now is that our children are like Buffalo born behind a fence they have no idea of the Abundant landscape and the depth of relationship that that people had traditionally kind of a long answer what was the name of the book that you mentioned right at the end on the Indian perspective when was it printed um it came out two weeks ago it was um it’s published by University of Nebraska press and it’s called the Salish people and the Louis and Clark expedition yeah and um I understand the Press told us you can go you can Google it you can go to um like amazon.com and and get copies of it or you can just contact the tribes and we can you know we we have them as well but yeah I don’t think I answered one of your questions did you ask me a complex question or a or a two-part question oh okay this the second topic I wanted to ask you about was the the attitude of the towards Clark slave York and whether he was treated any differently than than anyone else on the Expedition as he was with some tribes and and I asked that because when Clark talked to B about when they were preparing the journals Clark had said that some tribes that had not had much personal encounter with Europeans didn’t treat York any differently than anyone else York might have been the determining factor for one of the significant determining factors that allowed the Expedition not to be eliminated when they entered Salish territory the people were very very curious about him there’s um in our um in our ceremonial way of life there is there is a time where um occasionally a transformation happens and um uh charcoal will will be used to blacken the skin and there was there there was some question about whether or not this this person was a great um a great spiritual leader of the people whether he was the um the you know the the most profoundly spiritual person um and and leader within the group um so there was some question whether or not that that color would come off they were very curious about him extraordinarily curious about him and did we have any more questions for Germain oh yes we do good all right I noticed that you had said that you considered that the Salish were related to other tribes in the area and but how did you regard the black feet as being I I it seems as if they were the sworn enemies of almost everybody around but did you consider other native tribes like the black fate to be related to Salish or how was was no we’re distinct there’s no relationship they have a completely separate language and history and culture there’s there’s no relationship between Salish and cutney people and the black feet people um I think it was Desmet that called black feet the hell hounds the Rockies they were they were um uh they were Fierce Warriors occasionally we had temporary alliances but traditionally they were our enemies and it it’s complex to understand the the need to protect resources for the well-being of the people and how it is that that when some when someone enters into your territory and makes an effort to uh to capture those resources how people will fiercely respond I mean if somebody came to your house to steal a child um I’m guessing you would be fierce in your retaliation of of that individual um for Salish people and and it’s for Salish people it was much the same you know the the threat to the well-being of the people was was um was powerful and people we are known to be very hospitable very generous of spirit people but um we’re also known to be extremely Fierce adversaries so the relationship between black feet was primarily adversarial and you know I I I really don’t get this you know I I don’t get the whole notion of War Warfare you know maybe it’s a gender thing or I don’t know you know maybe it’s because I’m a mom um you know or an educator and so maybe because I come from a people that are really very very peaceful people and but so I don’t get it so I asked one of the elders you know just to try to explain to me about Warfare because it it doesn’t make sense to me um it seems contradictory to everything about our culture um the extraordinary art we produced the the generosity as I said um you know the love of children um the deep relationship with animals so why did we go to war and um finally in frustration he said you know it was a different time gerain it was a different time probably now people that were um probably now great warriors that were admired for their courage their strength their bravery would be in prison so it’s just um it’s difficult for me to really explain about Warfare and adversarial relationships very easily and particularly about our relationship with black feet you know I tell my black feet friends don’t take it personally you know if if some of my relatives um seem less than welcoming it’s just this long historic relationship we have well let’s thank Germaine again for joining us here in the Ten of many voices thank you lmm L pesia thank you and remember there are programs here in the ten

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