Salisk—
Flathead or
Ootlashoot—Indians
of the present day, along line
of the Northern Pacific Railway west
of Missoula, Moutana.
importance, and the actual results fully equaled all that could have been expected.Flathead or
Ootlashoot—Indians
of the present day, along line
of the Northern Pacific Railway west
of Missoula, Moutana.
From the mouth of the Missouri river, the expedition, starting on May 14, 1804, ascended that stream to Fort Mandan, a point about fifty miles above Bismarck, N. D., remaining during the winter of 1804-5 among the Mandan and Grosventre Indians.
The party then followed the Missouri and its western prolongation, the Jefferson river, to what they, naturally enough but erroneously, considered its source, crossed the Rockies to the headwaters of Salmon river in Idaho, recrossed the range into the Bitter-root valley, Montana, descended that valley nearly to Missoula, crossed the Bitter-root range to the west by the Lolo—Travelers’-rest—creek and pass, reached the Kooskooske or Clearwater river, near the mouth of its north fork, and descended that stream, the Snake, and the Columbia rivers to the sea.12
