- Retracing
the Nez Perce National Historic Trail through Montana
- by George
Everett
 "Do them no hurt."
In 1805, these words were spoken in council to her people by
the Nez Perce elder Watkuweis as they debated the fate of the
starving and weak white men who had appeared from the mountains.
It was Captain William Clark and an advance party of the Lewis
and Clark Expedition. The Lewis and Clark Expedition had many
close calls with native people but this may have been the most
perilous. In a few minutes the Nez Perce could have effortlessly
killed the debilitated explorers and taken their weapons and
trade goods.
Instead, it would turn out to be their most advantageous encounter.
Partly due to the advice of Watkuweis who had been treated kindly
by whites in her own travels, the Nez Perce nursed the men back
to health, provided guides, traded horses and ensured that they
could proceed safely toward the ocean.
That winter, as Meriwether Lewis waited out the weather on the
Pacific coast after a long journey across the continent, he became
convinced that the success of his expedition relied on the Nez
Perce Indians he had met along the way. One of the primary goals
of the expedition was to find a Northwest Passage, a water route
that would allow trade to flow freely between the United States
and the riches of the Far East without the long arduous journey
around the southern tip of the continent into the Pacific Ocean.
Now that the Rocky Mountains, especially the Bitterroots of what
would be Montana had dashed all hopes of water commerce, Lewis
had devised a plan that would rescue the journey's objective
for Thomas Jefferson. Lewis imagined long pack trains hauling
beaver pelts to the Pacific coast and then heading east again
over the mountains and plains loaded with spices, tea, silk,
and other goods from China. Instead of a Northwest Passage of
water, Lewis would recommend a trade route from east to west
linked by Nez Perce Appaloosas.
Lewis' grandiose ideas died with him after he returned East.
Instead, over the next 75 years the Nez Perce endured missionaries
who squabbled over their souls, land-hungry latecomers on the
Oregon Trail, and in the 1860s, they found themselves pushed
onto smaller and smaller reservations to allow pikers to dig
for gold. When injustice erupted in violence, many Nez Perce
decided to leave rather than give up their right to live how
and where they chose on land that was rightfully their own.
-
 The Nez Perce National Historic Trail
marks the route taken by the Nez Perce Indians in 1877, when
they assembled an entourage of nearly 800 friends and family,
and a herd of nearly 2,000 Appaloosa horses.
The path taken after the Nez Perce refused to move onto a reservation
and fled the U.S. Army follows close to 1,200 miles of some of
the most remote and spectacular terrain in the Northwest in Oregon,
Idaho, and Montana. In many places, the land has changed little
since the Nez Perce passed through in the summer and fall of
1877.
From the outset, the Nez Perce had two goals: to avoid people
and conflicts and to find sanctuary until they could return to
their Wallowa Valley homeland in Northeastern Oregon. Conflicts,
however, were never far behind and sanctuary was not to be found.
Only a year after the massacre at the Little Big Horn, their
refusal to move onto the reservation made them dangerous hostiles
in the eyes of white law and over the course of their retreat
the Nez Perce fought numerous skirmishes and pitched battles
with soldiers and volunteers of several units of the U.S. Army.
The route of the Nez Perce retreat crossed through Idaho, Oregon,
Montana and Wyoming but most of the time they traveled through
what would be Montana on their flight to reach sanctuary in Canada
across "The Medicine Line," the magical invisible boundary
that would bring safety from the pursuing American soldiers.
Following U.S. Route 12 over Lolo Pass from Idaho, the Nez Perce
Trail drops down into Montana's Bitterroot Valley and then south
on U.S. Route 93. Here the trail leads over Chief Joseph Pass
to Montana Route 43 and down to the Big Hole National Battlefield
near the town of Wisdom, about 80 miles southwest of Butte. The
Nez Perce knew this route as Khasana Ishkit -- the Buffalo Trail
-- that took them over the mountains in summer to hunt buffalo
on Montana's plains.
 As it was for the Nez Perce in
August 1877, this Montana location is the emotional turning point
on the Nez Perce Trail. In 1877, in the Big Hole Valley, the
Nez Perce were convinced that they had left their troubles on
the other side of the mountains and they celebrated and rested
on the east bank of the North Fork of the Big Hole River. Sure
that the war was over, no sentries were posted to protect the
camp.
The battlefield is little changed from the morning of August
8 when the Nez Perce were attacked by 183 troops and citizen
volunteers led by Colonel John Gibbons. The Big Hole is a high
mountain valley, though, rimmed by mountains that are snow-capped
nearly year-round. Heavy frosts are common even in August. When
the attacking soldiers bogged down trying to set dew-drenched
tipis on fire, about a dozen Nez Perce warriors were able to
mount a counterattack that forced the soldiers to retreat to
a nearby bench of pine trees  overlooking
the river. There, the warriors kept the soldiers and volunteers
pinned down until the main camp had time to pack up and retreat.
From the Big Hole Battlefield, the Nez Perce retreated south,
following the mountains and hauling their wounded and mourning
their dead and dying. They were able to stay ahead of pursuing
troops by sending the wounded ahead early in the morning and
catching up with them before making camp at night. The route
they took can be followed by heading south from Wisdom to Jackson
on Route 278 and then on to Interstate 15 at Dillon, Montana
as the Nez Perce dropped down into Idaho and then east into Yellowstone
National Park. This route can be approximately traveled by driving
on Interstate 15 to to Spencer and Dubois and then east on County
Road 2-A to Route 20 and to West Yellowstone.
Along with their horse herd, the retreating Nez Perces were probably
the largest tourist party ever to pass through Yellowstone National
Park. Once inside the Park, the Nez Perce moved slowly, resting,
hunting, and enjoying the safety and bounty of the area in the
company of captured tourists from two different parties. A vivid
eyewitness account by one of the survivors, Frank D. Carpenter,
was later published under the title of Adventures in Geyserland.
From Yellowstone Park, the Nez Perce moved northward back into
Montana. In Montana, the Nez Perce headed north past Laurel,
Ryegate, Judith Gap, and Lewistown until they were finally trapped
by soldiers at Bear's Paw Battlefield near Chinook, Montana.
This is perhaps the most tragic battlefield of the entire retreat.
Here only a few miles from the Canadian border, Chief Joseph
looked around to see his people cold, starving, and women and
children huddled in hastily dug pits in the cold October air.
The most  experienced warriors including
Looking Glass and Joseph's brother Ollicot died here defending
their people against a cavalry charge and the five-day siege
that followed.
Unable to endure the suffering of his people any longer, Chief
Joseph surrendered here with his famous "I will fight no
more forever" speech.
In another irony, Joseph, who had argued among his people to
not leave their homeland, would never be allowed to return to
the Wallowa Valley to live. After several years as a prisoner
in Kansas and Indian Territory, he was finally allowed to resettle
in Washington state, still far from his native lands.
Trip Planner
Today, the length of the national historic trail is easily accessible
by car on secondary and back roads.
The trail begins near Wallowa in Northeastern Oregon, the ancestral
lands of the Nez Perce. The trail moves north through Idaho by
way of White Bird and Clearwater Battlefields, through Nez Perce
National Historic Park and the Nez Perce reservation on U.S.
Route 12 before the trail moves over Lolo Pass into Southwest
Montana. It dips back into Idaho briefly and then moves through
Yellowstone National Park. On the east side of the Park, after
a brief jog into Wyoming, the path turns north again into Montana
and moves determinedly, as the Nez Perce did, toward the Canadian
border.
What took months for the Nez Perce with horses and home in tow
would take the modern traveler in car or RV about two weeks of
leisurely driving and camping along the way to travel the entire
route of approximately 1,200 miles.
For anyone who travels any stretch of the Nez Perce Trail, two
handy references are recommended. First, a detailed travel guidebook
that includes eyewitness accounts is an indispensible travel
companion for anyone traveling the Nez Perce National Historic
Trail. Published in 1990, it is titled Following the Nez
Perce Trail, by Cheryl Wilfong.
Also, a detailed map of the trail is available from the U.S.
Forest Service's Northern Region. Check with a local U.S. Forest
Service office and ask for their map of the Nez Perce (Nee-Mee-Poo)
National Historic Trail.
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