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 | | Monday November 23, 2009 2:53 AM |
 | | From the Journals of Lewis & Clark in 1804-1805 | |
LEWIS & CLARK enter Spokane Country in 1806
In May of 1806, unable to cross the mountains because of the snow,
Lewis and Clark stopped at the northmost bend of the Snake River at the present-day
sites of Penawawa and Almota, approximately 100 miles south of
Spokane. Here they apparently spoke to a Spokane or a Coeur d'Alene native.
Lewis and Clark never traveled closer to the Spoakne area.
They never saw the Spokane River or the Spokane Indian habitations.
Some of their description seems confused, but their description fits no other
river nearly as well as it does the Spokane.
That would make their description the first written geographical description of
the Spokane country, even if their data concerning the area was
second hand, rather than from direct observation.
Remember that Lewis & Clark had to get all their
information by speaking through a series of five translators and six languages.
The Spokane Indians in their unwritten
history tell of sending a delegation to the Clearwater River to
see the strange white men.
One entry in the Lewis and Clark
journals may refer to that visit. After wintering at the mouth
of the Columbia, Lewis and Clark started back up the river early
in 1806. They started a little too early, however, for when they
came to the passes across the Bitterroot Mountains, they were
compelled to turn back and wait for a month in the Nez Perce
country for the snow to melt in the mountains. During the
waiting period they wrote the following:
"At this place we met with three men of a nation called the
Skeet-ko-mish [Spokane?] who reside at the forks of a large
river [the Spokane River and the Little Spokane River?]
discharging itself into the Columbia on its
east side to the north of the entrance of Clark's River
[Snake River]. This
river, they informed me, headed in a large lake [Lake Coeur
d'AIene?] in the mountains, and that the falls [Spokane Falls?],
below which they resided, was at no great distance from the
lake.
"These people are the same in their dress and appearance with
the Chopunnish [Nez Perce] though their language is entirely
different. The river here called the Clark's River is that we
have hitherto called the Flathead River. I have thus named it in
honor of my worthy friend and fellow traveler, Captain Clark.
For this stream we know no name, and no white man but ourselves
was ever on its principal branches.
"The Skeet-ko-mish nation resides in six villages and are about
70 miles distant from the Chopunnish nation and beyond a
mountain which that river heads in. The Waytom Lake [Coeur
d'Alene?] is 10 days around it, has two islands in it, and is
seven days from the Chopunnish. The falls of the Lartow River, a
little below the lake, is 150 feet, nearly perpendicular, or
thereabouts.
"The falls of Clark's River [Albany Falls], which is only a half
day's ride from the latter, falls between 400 and 500 feet and
leaves a continuous, spray. The roads which pass up Clark's
River from the falls, and that which intersects it from the
falls af Lartow River are hilly and bad. The Skeet-ko-mish
reside 30 miles up this river. The Skeet-ko-mish reside also on
the borders of Waytom Lake and on two islands within the same."
selection quoted in Edmund T. Becher,Spokane Corona - Eras & Empires,
Spokane 1974, p.15-18
Last Updated
December 22, 2004
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