It was an overcast day to start, but hopefully as
the day progresses it will brighten and lighten up. The darkness of the day,
does make the mountains look ominous!
On our way from the parking lot, we passed by some
community gardens and this sunflower caught everyone’s eye. I tried to capture
the rawness of its beauty against the tomato plants in the background.
The Lewis and Clark expedition crossed the Continental
Divide near Lemhi Pass on August 12, 1805, accompanied by their interpreter,
Sacajawea, a young Lemhi-Shoshone woman who was born near present day Salmon,
Idaho. It was in central Idaho that the expedition, peering across the endless
mountain ranges ahead, realized they wouldn’t be finding a river passage to the
Pacific. We began our own voyage of discovery at the Sacajawea Center.
Cradled in the Lemhi Valley between the Salmon River and the
Beaverhead Mountains, the Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural and Educational
Center is located in the heart of her homeland. The 70-acre park is dedicated
to Sacajawea and her people, the Agaidika Shoshone-Bannock and commemorates her
role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
We enjoyed the indoor and outdoor exhibits, plus a guest
lecturer. Judy Washbon, she was awesome, very animated and passionate about
Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea. The Shoshone were enemies of the gun-possessing Hidatsa
tribe, who kidnapped Sacagawea during a buffalo hunt in 1800. The name we know
her by is in fact Hidatsa, from the Hidatsa words for bird “sacaga” and woman “wea”.
Her captors brought her to the
Hidatsa-Mandan settlement near what is now Bismarck, North Dakota; the Mandan
is an affiliated tribe. In 1803 or 1804, through a trade, gambling payoff or
purchase, Sacagawea became the property of French-Canadian fur trader Toussaint
Charbonneau, born no later than 1767 and well over two decades her senior.
Charbonneau had lived among Native Americans for so long he had adopted some of
their traditions, including polygamy. Sacagawea became one of his two wives and
was soon pregnant.
Meanwhile, President Thomas Jefferson had made the Louisiana
Purchase from France in 1803—828,000 square miles of almost completely
unexplored territory. But Jefferson wanted more from the explorers who would
search for the passage: He charged them with surveying the natural landscape,
learning about the varied Native American tribes and making maps. He turned to
his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to head the Corps of Discovery. Lewis, 29,
chose his friend and former military superior, 33-year-old William Clark, as
his co-captain.
After more than a year of planning and initial travel, Lewis
and Clark and their men reached the Hidatsa-Mandan settlement—about 60 miles
northwest of present-day Bismarck, South Dakota on November 2, 1804, when
Sacagawea was about six months pregnant. They recognized the potential value of
Sacagawea and Charbonneau’s combined language skills. Most of the Corps members
spoke only English, but one, Francois Labiche, spoke French as well.
Charbonneau spoke French and Hidatsa; Sacagawea spoke Hidatsa and Shoshone (two
very different languages). Through this translation chain, communications with
the Shoshone would be possible, and Lewis and Clark recognized that as crucial:
the Shoshone had horses they would need to purchase. Without horses, they
wouldn’t be able to transport their supplies over the Bitterroot Mountains and
continue toward the Pacific. And they couldn’t procure horses earlier, because
they’d be traveling by water until they reached the Rockies’ edge.
She was a bilingual Shoshone woman accompanied the Lewis and
Clark Corps of Discovery expedition in 1805-06 from the northern plains through
the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean and back. Her skills as a translator
were invaluable, as was her intimate knowledge of some difficult terrain.
Perhaps most significant was her calming presence on both the expeditioners and
the Native Americans they encountered, who might have otherwise been hostile to
the strangers. Remarkably, Sacagawea did it all while caring for the son. Jean-Baptiste
Charbonneau (known as Baptiste) was born on February 11, 1805. On April 7,
Sacagawea, the baby and Charbonneau headed west with the 31 other Corps members.
We entered a
bit later than some members of our group, and they were in stitches when we
arrived. They said, wait until you see who we brought in to serve you … we were
very surprised, when a clown came out of the kitchen!
We later learned that her name is Princess and she usually
wears a tiara, but the rodeo is in town, so she went all out with the rodeo
clown theme. She was the only waitress for all 30 plus people there and she was
good! She got all the orders right and was bubbly, friendly and efficient! Don’t
let the grease paint and baggy pants fool you … Princess was top notch! And she
added an extra dose of fun to this already fun crowd!
Across the street from Wally's I found another International Order of Odd Fellows building. It must be a theme for this trip, I think this is the third or fourth Odd Fellows building I have seen on this trip.
We had to run a few errands before we headed back to camp.
We grabbed a few groceries and dropped some mail at the post office. When we
got back, we had a little time to kill before we car caravanned to get Yankee Ice
Cream at the North Fork General Store and went to look for wildlife in the
canyon.
The ice cream was delicious and they had craft beer on tap there too!
We were not lucky enough to see any animals, but the scenery
was spectacular and very different from the drive we took last night. One car,
actually a jeep, headed further into the canyon after the rest of us turned
around and they were lucky enough to see half a dozen big horns climbing on the
rocks and running in the road!
As if we haven’t had enough to eat already today … we had a dinner
of Yankee Pizza at the campground before we had our road log review. We got the
pizza from Dave’s in town and they only deliver 5 miles, so Helen and Mary had
to go meet the delivery driver halfway between the campground and Salmon!
With dinner and the road log review done, some of us went
out again, looking for wildlife. We saw an eagle and two cow elk. Another group
that went further into the canyon than we did saw a small herd of elk.
We saw a beautiful moon over the canyon, it was another great day with Yankee RV tours!
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