Salmon River Scenic Byway

By editor

Sula, Ravalli County, Montana, August 1805

The grand design of the American republic, as conceived by President Thomas Jefferson, rested upon a geographical hope: that the great rivers of the continent might provide a continuous, navigable highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. For more than a year, the Corps of Discovery had labored up the Missouri River, driven by the expectation that once they crossed the rocky spine of the continent, they would find a westward-flowing stream to carry them swiftly to the sea. In August of 1805, having finally breached the Continental Divide and descended into the valleys of the Shoshone, Captain William Clark set out to test this theory upon the waters of the Salmon River.

The Shoshone people, whose knowledge of these mountains was intimate and ancient, had already warned the Americans that the river was impassable. Their guide, an elderly Lemhi Shoshone named Pi-keek queen-ah, or Swooping Eagle, whom the captains called Old Toby, had spoken of a river that tore through deep, unyielding canyons where neither boat nor horse could survive. Yet the mandate of the expedition required certainty. A water route was the prize they had crossed half a continent to claim, and Captain Clark, a man of empirical habit, was obliged to see the impossibility with his own eyes.

On the twentieth of August, Clark departed the Shoshone encampment with a small detachment of men and his guide, following the Salmon River as it plunged into the wilderness. For the first few days, the journey was merely arduous, a steady progression over steep hillsides and loose rock. But by the twenty-second, the landscape began to assume a character of terrifying severity. The mountains closed in upon the river, their sides presenting, as Clark recorded, "one barren surface of confused and broken masses of stone."

The route became a desperate clamber over sharp fragments of rock that had tumbled from the heights, lying in chaotic heaps for miles together. At one point, the cliffs jutted so violently into the river that the men were forced to drive their horses into the deep, rapid current to bypass the obstruction. Shortly thereafter, even this perilous method failed. The track terminated entirely against a wall of solid rock, perfectly inaccessible to horses.

Leaving the animals and the majority of his men behind, Clark pressed onward with Old Toby and three companions, determined to trace the river's course still further. For twelve miles, they scrambled over immense boulders and along the edges of lofty precipices. What Clark beheld was the death of the expedition's greatest hope. The river was "one continued rapid," choked with shoals that could not be navigated even by empty canoes. In places, the perpendicular cliffs rose directly from the water's edge, preventing any possibility of a portage.

The situation was stark, and the wilderness offered no compromise. "The season is now far advanced to remain in these mountains," Clark noted with the grim pragmatism of a commander. The salmon were already retreating from the upper waters, and the desolate canyon offered no game larger than a pheasant or a squirrel. To attempt a passage by water would require months of labor to blast away the rock, consuming provisions they did not possess and time they could not spare. The Salmon River, which would later earn the ominous title of the "River of No Return," had delivered its verdict.

On the twenty-seventh of August, Clark returned to the main encampment to deliver the heavy news to Captain Meriwether Lewis. The dream of an easy water route to the Pacific was shattered against the unyielding stone of the Salmon River canyon. The expedition would have to abandon their canoes, purchase horses from the Shoshone, and commit themselves to a grueling overland journey across the Bitterroot Mountains, a trial that would push them to the very limits of human endurance.

Today, the Salmon River Scenic Byway traces the corridors of this dramatic landscape, winding through a region that later yielded fortunes in silver and gold to the miners of Custer and Bonanza. Yet the true historical resonance of this rugged country lies not in the wealth extracted from its rocks, but in the moment when it forced the greatest exploring enterprise of the age to halt, turn back, and find another way. The river remains untamed, a rushing monument to the enduring power of the American wilderness.

See also

• Salmon River Scenic Byway at Sula, Ravalli County (Erected by U.S. Forest Service)
• Which Way Did Lewis & Clark Go?, detailing the expedition's subsequent overland struggle
• Sula, a community near the historic routes of the Corps of Discovery