Subj: Text for website
Date: 3/21/00 3:30:49 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: DPOCTALC1
To: Tomactor

October 17th, 1805:
This was to be a very remarkable day. The Corps would discover the Yakima River, sagebrush (which was so well known to the Oregon Trail pioneers), a strange and different Indian lifestyle, dead salmon floating in the river by the hundreds and the amazing flat heads of the Indians.

"A fair morning...I took two men and set out in a Small Canoe with a view to go as high up the Columbia River as the 1st forks...I set out at 2 oClock." Ten miles up the Yakima River on the right shoreline, were two large mat lodges of the Yakama Indians who were drying salmon. These were the first mat lodges that the Corps had ever seen and they were strewn all along the banks of the river. Hundreds of dead floating fish were to be seen as it was the end of the annual salmon migration all along the Columbia River. Gary Moulton refers to these salmon as either Coho or Sockeye. "the Cause of the emence of dead Salmon I can't account for" writes Clark.
It was of course not known at this time about the migration pattern of the salmon who died after laying and fertilizing their eggs. Here it was on an island ten miles upstream on the Columbia and eight miles distance from the mouth of the Yakima River, that an Indian shows Captain Clark "the mouth of a river which falls in below a high hill on the Lard (left)..." This fork, or the entrance to the Yakima River was called Ta'pete'tt by the Yakamas. An interesting point is brought up here when Clark notes that no timber is to be seen anywhere. The point being that the Indians gathered up all the dead fish, not to be eaten but to be dried and used as fuel for fires! While Clark is taking in the grand scenery (the Horse Heaven Hills are to the west and the Blue Mountains are to the east) he makes what I believe to be a very remarkable statement. "The Waters of this river is Clear, and a Salmon may be seen at the depth of 15 to 20 feet." Not only are the salmon endangered but the rivers are so polluted and muddy that if there were salmon to be had by the hundreds, they would die before spawning!

Clark returns to the Kosith campsite where a great number of Indians have gathered again with Captain Lewis. The Corps is busy in dressing skins, mending their clothing and making sure that their arms are in good working condition.

Great attention and detail was given to the Indian customs, mat lodges and their living conditions and so it was here observed for the first time the process they used for flattening their heads. Clark also noted very few horses as the canoe was their chief means of transportation, being mostly river people.

Sagebrush, the bane of the Oregon Trail pioneer, was another first for the Corps. This was the "wild isoop" or big sagebrush. Mat lodges, as mentioned before, replaced the skin tipis of the Plains Indians. The culture of these River Indians is mostly like that of the Northwest Coast tribes that Lewis and Clark were soon to encounter.

It is also interesting to note that the Yakima River was named by the Corps as the Flathead River but later renamed for Clark. Since Lewis had his river (the Snake) so must Clark, therefore the Flathead became Clark's River.

Clark makes mention that the Indians had sore eyes and that many were partially or totally blind. The teeth were not missing but rather worn away by the fine sand borne by the winds coming out of the Gorge and through Wallula Gap, which settled everywhere and when eaten with their food acted as an abrasive. In 1848 the Canadian artist Paul Kane wrote "the drifting sand is a frightful feature of this barren waste...the salmon also becomes filled with sand to such an extent as to wear away the teeth of the Indians, and an Indian seldom met with over 40 years of age whose teeth are not worn quite to the gums."

So ends a day not filled with rapids, wet clothing and baggage, capsized dugouts or battered and bruised men, but rather a day of resting and repairing equipment and clothing, a day of exploring the beauty and dangers of nature and a day of recording a way of life unknown to man before Lewis and Clark's grand adventure. The Corps of Discovery, during this two day stay, was indeed properly named!