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Members of President Thomas Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery ( Lewis and Clark as captains) camped here at the confluence of the Clearwater River (coming in from the left--east) and the Snake River (coming in from the south). The exact location of their campsite is under water now because of a dam further down on the Snake, several miles off to the west (or right), which backs up water into both basins--the Snake and the Clearwater.

We do know from the captains' journals that camp was on this north side of the Clearwater just where it flows into the Snake and that they were here the night of October 10, 1805. It is lucky for us who follow in their footsteps that Jefferson was very clear about their recording everything they could about the country they were exploring. The captains were faithful to write almost every night in their elk-hide-bound journals, no matter the difficulty of sitting in camp with their quill pens, mixing ink powder with water, and dipping the quill into the ink every few strokes. They wrote many details that help us imagine the way this country looked before dams, power boats, towns, power lines, highways, cars, planes, logging roads, and clear-cuts. I drove down the hill to the Clearwater River after I took this picture and found the place where the two rivers join. At the edge of the reservoir, at a site uphill of where Lewis and Clark's campsite would have been, there is now a lumber mill. Hundreds of stripped tree trunks are piled high in long rows, waiting to be made into paper.

Across the Clearwater River, on the left side of the Snake River, lies the town of Lewiston, Idaho. The Snake is the state line, so the part of town that sits on the right side of the Snake is in Washington--it's named Clarkston. The paper mill is in Clarkston, not far from the RV park I stayed in. Have you ever smelled the odor that comes from a paper mill? Lewis and Clark would not have liked it, either.

This dugout canoe is a replica of ones made by the Indians in the Pacific Northwest, as well as in other parts of the country where large trees were available. This one is on display at the junction of the Clearwater River and the North Fork of the Clearwater (which Lewis and Clark named the "Chopunnish") in Idaho. The expedition had reached this point after a perilous crossing of the Bitterroot Mountains, walking and leading pack horses through deep snow for many days. When, nearly starved, they came down out of the mountains they found themselves at an encampment of Nez Percé Indians who were gathering camas roots for food. The expedition members gorged themselves on the roots and on dried salmon that they purchased from the Indians with trade goods. The sudden overeating after days of near starvation brought on great illness. All of the expedition members were hit by it at some time or other, but the ones who were first to get well began on September 26, 1805, making the Ponderosa pine dugouts that would carry the expedition to the Pacific Ocean. With inadequate axes and few men to do the work of chopping, Clark resorted to the Indian method of burning out the logs over a slow-burning trench fire. (Clark had gotten sick first and had recovered by the time Lewis came down with it. Lewis was seriously ill for the whole time of the canoe-building and unable to help at all.) In ten days the men made four large canoes and one small one. On October 7, 1805, the expedition shoved off, floating down the Clearwater River headed for the Snake, the Columbia, and ultimately the Pacific Ocean.

When everyone was so sick, it would have been an easy job for the Nez Percé to kill them all and take all their guns and supplies. The Nez Percé had no guns, and their enemies did. Oral-history tradition, passed down by the tribe, tells that that idea was considered, but that a woman named Watkuweis talked them out of it. She had been a captive of the Blackfeet and then taken into Canada and sold to a white trader. She lived among the traders for several years until she somehow found her way home. The traders had treated her much better than the Blackfeet had. When Lewis and Clark's expedition arrived and got so sick, she told the warriors of her tribe that these were the people who had helped her. She asked her people not to hurt them. This woman saved their lives!

Sacajawea also saved the expedition, many times over. She collected edible plants and roots to eat when the men grew sick from eating only meat while crossing the plains. She kept the group from being attacked by Indians along the way--her presence proving that the Corps of Discovery was a peaceful group, or a woman and baby wouldn't be traveling with them. She guided the expedition to her people, the Shoshone, and helped get the horses that carried the Corps and their goods across the mountains. The success of the expedition is in no small way attributable to two brave women.

The valley shown in the first picture is the Weippe (WEE-ipe) Prairie in Idaho, where some Nez Percé were camped when Lewis and Clark and the expedition members came straggling down out of the mountains, nearly starved to death. The expedition had encountered an especially heavy, early snowstorm while crossing the Bitterroot Mountains that September of 1805 and had been in severe cold for several days. Here, in this warm, beautiful valley, the Nez Percé shared with them the roots or bulbs of the camas plants, which fill the meadow in the foreground. The men and Sacajawea ate too much of the food too soon after their near-starvation and became quite ill for a few days. The illness could also have resulted from the change from a previously all-meat diet to one rich in starch.

The second picture shows a bed of beautiful camas plants that I found at a lower elevation, on a warmer, south-facing bank of the Clearwater River. These had had more time to grow taller than the plants up in the mountain meadow and were already in full bloom. I was so tempted to dig up just one bulb and taste it, but I was a good citizen and left all the plants for everyone passing by to enjoy. At least, I enjoyed the sight of the pretty plants, even if this time I didn't get to sample the taste of them. Maybe someday I can return for the Camas Festival held in Weippe every summer, and then I can taste camas cooked and prepared in many different ways by the Nez Percé Indians. A woman that I talked to told me that camas tastes like a potato, only very sweet. Sounds good, doesn't it?

This small mound of volcanic rock represents the point of origin for the Nee-me'-poo (or the Nez Percé Indians, as they are called today). Their mythological story tells of Coyote fighting a Monster to save the animals of the world. Eventually, Coyote killed the monster and threw parts of it to different places in the Pacific Northwest. Wherever a piece of the Monster fell, a tribe came forth into the present world. The Nez Percé originated here, where the heart of the Monster landed, near present-day Kamiah, pronounced KAM-ee-eye.