Making the Idaho Landscape of 1863

4 5 Making the Idaho Landscape of 1863 by Adam M. Sowards andscapes emerge from history. Geologic history, of course, plays a formative role, furnishing the bedrock of our environmental past. But landscapes are more than volcanism and the migration of flora and fauna. Landscapes are cultural artifacts, for they include humans integrally. The Idaho landscape of 1863, then, must be understood in its historical continuum, as a place produced by nature Land culture shaping one another over time and in place. In 1863—the inauguration of Idaho’s territorial period—the landscape represented the culmination of millennia influenced by Native peoples and the short but influential hand of Euroamericans. As are all places, Idaho in 1863 was a landscape in transition. The indigenous people who called Idaho home since time immemorial lived in an inhabited landscape, a place animated by animal people and plant partners, a place where abundance and scarcity came in cycles with seasonal and climatic changes, a place where human and natural communities related in rituals of reciprocity. Ancient, but on-going, oral traditions stress how Animal Peoples prepared the world for Human Peoples, offered gifts and lessons, and, together, they mutually made the world. And so long as the stories still are told and traditions performed, they continue to make the world together. Idaho’s Native populations—from the Ktunaxa (Kootenai) in the north to the Bannaqwate (Bannock) in the southeast—represented several cultural groups, but com- mon notions of reciprocity and sharing guided Native peoples’ relationship with rest of nature. The Nimíipuu (Nez Perce) community would begin salmon season with rituals and a © David Jensen Photography Petroglyphs at Buffalo Eddy on the Snake River. 6 7 Facing page: feast—ka-oo-yit—to thank the Creator for Just as culture structured Natives While the Corps’ judg- noting women’s roles in Below: The North Meriwether generosity and the salmon for returning and peoples’ relationship with the Idaho ment about painful and gathering and preparing West Company’s Lewis noted the offering themselves to nourish the people. landscape, so too did it control those laborious lives smacks of the roots and the occa- David Thompson significance of followed Lewis A Schitsu’umsh (Couer d’Alene) woman Euroamericans who traveled through this their own cultural prefer- sions when they might camas to the diets and Clark in the of the Nez Perce, might offer a prayer and some tobacco be- landscape, some of whom even came to call ences, Lewis and Clark be consumed. Although exploration of and, while in fore digging the year’s first camas bulb. The it home. Although numerous nuances and recognized people in the Corps did not see the Idaho, establishing Idaho, gathered Newe (Shoshone) gathered for communal variations make cultural definition tricky, place making a living with landscape as animated Idaho’s first camas in bloom for hunts of antelope and rabbits—alternating three categories—science, religion, and the landscape. with spiritual powers as trading post on his plant collection. to provide the animal populations recovery economics—might be most important in The Corps’ gaze indigenous groups did, Lake Pend Oreille time—and then defining and shaping Idaho’s landscape as it lingered long enough they appreciated that a in 1809.The “Map celebrated with evolved toward the territorial period. on their return trip at detached scientific obser- of America,” showing the Done faithfully, these actions festivals includ- The Corps of Discovery straggled Camp Chopunnish on the vation of plants or ani- Company’s through Idaho at one of the expedition’s Clearwater River to make mals would insufficiently and countless others like them, ing the Round principal trading Dance while most difficult periods. Mazes of ridges and further and significant sci- © Gerry Queener capture their meaning. stations, dates repeated regularly over the individuals valleys blocked their way. Food ran out, and entific observations. Lewis If Lewis and Clark from c. 1817. In generations, ensured that nature asked animals hunger stalked them. Only the hospitality stocked his plant collection, while perceiving brought with them a science somewhat 1821 the North their permission of local Indians kept Meriwether Lewis and the value the Nez Perce placed on such root sensitive to human cultures, the next West Company would provide continuously. to take them William Clark and their crew successfully plants as small camas and cous biscuitroot. sojourners to Idaho had something else in merged with the Hudson’s Bay in a hunt. moving through Idaho. First, Sacajawea’s In describing these plants and others, Lewis mind: profit. Fur traders invaded Idaho’s riv- Company. Done faithfully, brother Cameahwait, a chief of a Lemhi recognized their intertwined cultural history, er valleys, raiding and ridding watersheds of these actions and countless others like band, provided necessary horses in August Nez Perce canoe, them, repeated regularly over the genera- 1805 near Lemhi Pass. Then, the Nez c. 1910, by Edward tions, ensured that nature would provide Perce, whom they called the Chopunnish, S. Curtis. continuously. furnished needed food on the Weippe Prairie a month later. Without the generosity of Native peoples and some good luck, the most significant explorers in American history would have struggled much more in Idaho’s mountainous middle. But they successfully traversed that landscape and did so with curiosity rooted partially in enlightenment science. Doing so, they began to analyze the landscape and how the inhabitants lived within it. For instance, Lewis noted the Lemhi River’s “loose stones and gravel” in which salmon spawned, while later noting how the Nez Perce led “painful and laborious” lives as they were “busily occupied in fishing for salmon” all through the summer and fall. Curtis Collection #2916-10, Library of Congress Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Provincial Archives of Manitoba Hudson’s 8 9 Peter S. Ogden their fur-bearing residents. If the language that was beyond comprehension or ability to lations of reciprocity. Fires were not set. Fish led Hudson’s Bay seems harsh, it is because the destruction shape to a significant degree. were not caught. Animals were not hunted. Company fur perpetrated in the name of profit wreaked Along with new products and economic Fields were not cultivated. Berries were not brigades in Idaho ecological havoc and noticeably changed interdependencies came the Euroamerican picked. Homes were not occupied. What to trap beaver with a goal of Idaho’s landscapes. traders. And along with them came Euroamericans found when they traveled creating a To stave off Americans who might set pathogens. Actually, diseases arrived before to Idaho was an impoverished and emptied “fur desert.” their sights on the far Oregon Country, Europeans did with the Shoshones being landscape. It was a place where centuries- the Canada-based British Hudson’s Bay hit by smallpox, the deadliest of contact old patterns of reciprocity between humans Company (HBC) sent traders known as the diseases, by the 1780s. Smallpox arrived and the natural world had utterly collapsed. Snake River Brigades under the leadership from the south with the horses and guns What history books once called the of Peter Skene Ogden and then John Work the Shoshones wanted, demonstrating “winning of the West,” or more benignly to the Snake River Plain and nearby moun- just how active and extensive Native trade the “settling of the West,” truly was a re- tains with the express purpose of creating a networks were. In northern Idaho, smallpox settling process, with new populations dis- “fur desert.” During its first year, the com- and other diseases traveled with other placing and refilling the landscapes in places pany harvested 4,500 pelts. Eventually oper- traders up the Columbia River system and like Idaho that had been largely depeopled. Henry H. Spalding, ating out of Fort Boise and taking over the spread through the Coeur d’Alene and Nez This can be overstated. Natives had not missionary to the American-built Fort Hall, they so successfully Perce populations, also affecting them be- disappeared, but their influence certainly Nez Perce. met their goals that trappers could only ginning in the 1780s. By 1850, indigenous declined as a new popula- muster 665 a decade later after diligently populations had collapsed by as much as plying their trade. Cumulatively, 35,000 #815ba18688 Oregon Historical Society, 90 percent. This depopulation stands, along beaver pelts left southern Idaho bound for with slavery, as America’s greatest tragedy. The results in the landscape were eastern or European markets, mainly for fur Its consequences ramified again and again substantial. A keystone species in riparian hats. Market demand created the opportu- throughout Idaho’s coming history. zones, beaver affected much, and removing nity while the desire of British merchants to The cultural consequences are almost them had cascading effects. Six thousand forestall American competition created the unfathomable to us in the 21st century. The ponds gone meant that water flowed faster, impetus to trap out the country. young and the old—tribes’ most vulnerable erosion increased along with stream sedi- populations—faced the highest mortality ment loads, and habitat for various other rates. Their deaths held disproportionate creatures diminished. And those were only tragedy: The elders held accumulated tribal the mostly direct consequences. knowledge, while the young held the tribal Indirectly, the fur trade wrought further future. At a time when other economic, devastation to Idaho. The trade brought political, and cultural forces hampered trade goods that were attractive additions to their capacity to respond with full strength, indigenous economies and cultures. That tied recovering from the loss of so many family Idaho’s Native populations to markets far be- members severely stressed Native peoples. yond Idaho that functioned with little regard The consequences for the landscape for Idaho and with little influence from the also mattered.

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