How Pristine Were Our Ecosystems Before Western Exploration?
February 3, 2010
Oh, if only we could return to the days before man got into our wilderness areas and destroyed everything. Imagine how wonderful it must have been. Nature doing a fine job all on its own and then all of a sudden man expands his reach and destroys it all.
This is what I hear all the time. Even our education factories teach our kids this inaccurate history. Few have ever heard of what it was really like. I know I have had many discussions with people about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I admit I was one of those who dreamed about how wonderful it must have been. What could be more exciting to a man who loved the outdoors than to be a member of the Lewis and Clark troop? This would provide a participant the opportunity to see the forests, the plains, the rivers, the valleys, the birds, deer, moose, elk, bison, mountain goats, wild sheep, tons of beaver, muskrat, mink, lynx, bobcat, mountain lions, coyotes, wolves, oh, my. What am I forgetting. I might have been in for a rude awakening had I been there.
Lewis and Clark mounted their expedition from around 1804-1806 and their journey was quite well documented. We know that they took along “professional” hunters and trappers to provide food for the members. Logs show Lewis and Clark spent much of their time trading with Indians for dogs to eat because there was no game.
During the years of 1825-1860, Jedediah Smith, Peter Skeen Ogden, Milton Sublette, Joe Meek, John Fremont, Charles Preuss, Captain J. H. Simpson, and Howard Egan, explored all over the West, both on foot and horseback. They kept diaries and logs of their adventures and these accounts describe a much different picture of what it was really like before man moved into this region and settled.
Jedediah Smith is believed to be one of the first explorers of this region. In 1827, Smith and what was described as two of his best men, set out up the American River, through Central Nevada and ending up at Lake Lake, Utah. Smith’s log describes this trip accordingly.
After traveling 22 days from the east side of Mount Joseph, (Sierra Nevada’s) I struck the Southwest corner of the Great Salt Lake, traveling over a country completely barren and destitute of game. We frequently traveled without water, sometime for two days, over sandy deserts where there was no sign of vegetation and when we found water in some of the rocky hills we most generally found Indians who appeared the most miserable of the human race. When we arrived at the Salt Lake, we had but one horse and one mule remaining, which were so feeble and poor that they could scarcely carry the little camp equipage which I had along. The balance of my horses I was compelled to eat.
This expedition originally began with 14 men and 28 horses.
In 1828 Peter Skeen Ogden led an expedition into North Central Nevada. In an area that is now near Winnemucca, Nevada on the Humboldt River (Marys River), what was seen is described this way.
From clumps of sage on the hillsides, scrawny, brown-bodied men peered out upon their passage. Down in the Valley, now and again, the Indians scurried into the brush ahead of them. They were clothed, if at all, in twisted rabbit skins; They had no horses. They lived on seeds, and what wild fowl they could bring down. Ogden had never encountered a race of animals less entitled to the name of man.
The following year Ogden returned to the same area to do some trapping on the river. He describes the river as being very “unwholesome” and says the antelope, which during this time would be near the rivers are scarce. He declares, “woe to them who depend to them for support”.
In 1832 Milton Sublette led a group of trappers into the Marys River (Humboldt). There was no game and the trappers had to eat the beavers they had been trapping. His reports stated that there was not much for what wild animals there were to eat and that they were forced to eat wild parsnips, which poisoned them. The group had to leave this area and head north where they hoped to find something to eat.
Because of this it became necessary to at once abandon the river, and strike across the country towards the North, where after being four days with almost no food, and several weeks in the state of famine they reached the Snake River above the fishing Falls, they were forced, as they passed through the country, to subsist upon ants, crickets, parched moccasins, and the pudding made from the blood, taking a pint at a time from their almost famished animals.
Joe Meek recalls holding his bare hands in an anthill until they were covered with angry ants and then licking the ants off and eating them like a hungry animal.
Joe Walker later traveled through this same Marys River area and continued on into California near the Truckee River down the West Slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Having left Salt Lake and traveling 14 days into California, the expedition had not seen any game to eat and instead lived off horses they were compelled to kill to ward off starvation.
One man killed a deer, which he carried to camp on his back. The animal was dressed, cooked and eaten, … in less time than a hungry wolf would devour a lamb. This was the first game larger than a rabbit that they had killed since leaving the Salt Lake two months ago. For fourteen days they had lived on nothing but horseflesh …twenty four horses had died in crossing the mountain, and seventeen of these had been eaten.
1825 and 1826 found Ogden covering much of what we all know as Oregon today and not only did his group not find any game but the horses were starving because they couldn’t find even any decent grasses for the horse to feed on. It wasn’t just the explorers finding these wastelands. Ogden relates a story told of an Indian woman in Oregon.
The winter before had been so severe, she said, that her people had to resort to the bodies of relations and children. She had killed no one herself, but had fed on two of her children who died.
Things are pretty harsh when anyone has to resort to cannibalism but to first have to kill somebody to eat them, is unfathomable.
John Fremont and Charles Preuss covered areas of Southern Wyoming west toward the Bear River and then South toward Salt Lake. Things were tough. Game was missing and grazing grasses for the horses were non existent as well. Explorers tried trading with the Indian for food but soon discovered the Indians were starving to death themselves. It was only upon finding the Shoshone camped out along the Snake River, were they able to find a tribe living well from ample supplies of smoked Salmon.
Fremont’s party traveled the Columbia River north into Vancouver finding much the same. They even had to buy firewood from some of the resident Indians. Heading south toward Nevada, local tribes warned Fremont there was nothing for his horses to feed on. They were right.
… They had found nothing but dry, shallow basins, their way “broken by gullies and impeded by sage, and sandy on the hills, where there is not a blade of grass.”
Later Fremont would find Pyramid Lake and gorge on trout.
In all of the travels that are documented by many of these explorers, in what is now the state of Nevada, only one time is there mention of someone sighting an elk, but it is believed the person saw a mule deer and mistook it for an elk.
The Indians in this region mostly lived terrible lives, with little clothing, food or sufficient shelter. They ate mostly rats and insects and what few other birds or small game they might be fortunate to find and kill. We have visions of Indians having access to ample game animals and utilizing the hides for clothing and shelter. Such was not the case in most of the Great Basin.
Howard Egan, Sr. was the first Mormon explorer into the region of the Great Salt Lake. As a matter of fact he traveled there with Brigham Young. Egan covered much of the area between the Salt Lake and west into California as he was in the business of driving cattle there.
Egan recounts for us how the Indians crafted these remarkable corrals they would use to trap antelope. The entire episode of putting on a drive required all the men, women and children of the tribe. One had to question whether the effort put into the building and driving was worth the 24 antelope they trapped in twelve years. But when you’re hungry, some antelope is better than none.
The Indians did a similar thing conducting a cricket drive. No, I’m not kidding. Trenches were dug of about 1 foot wide by 1 foot deep and covered over with a thin layer of stiff grass. All the tribes people would begin pounding the ground with tufts of straw in a concerted effort, to drive the black crickets toward the trenches. Once the trenches contained all the crickets they could drive, they set the grass they had placed over the trenches on fire, killing the crickets. They then used the crickets for food, mostly grinding it up and mixing it with other things to make a concocted kind of flour.
These and more accounts certainly paint a far different picture of how things actually were than what we are often taught about how balanced and bountiful our forests and wilderness were before man arrived. Man certainly made his share of mistakes in being good stewards of the land but in time we figured out what we had to do to sustain game populations and to control the predators that destroyed those.
With the presence of man and bringing with him agriculture and the knowledge to plant and grow crops and tend the land, this began to create a better habitat that would support a heartier and healthier crop of game animals. We controlled the predators so people could harvest the game to feed their families and over time devised a pretty decent wildlife management plan that many around the world now envy.
Sorry, but Mother Nature didn’t really give us a “balanced” ecosystem, at least one that is the most productive. These accounts above I believe more accurately depict Mother Nature’s idea of a balanced ecosystem. There’s nothing wrong with that but I don’t think it is in the best interest of humans to have it that way, nor is it what I think people really want or are thinking about when they speak of “natural” wildlife management.
Tom Remington
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L&C traveled on established roads with guides. Other than mountain passes, everywhere they went was inhabited by human beings and had been inhabited for thousands of years. Wilderness is a myth.
Where were the buffalo then? Didn’t they travel the same areas as antelope?
That’s a good question. None of the documents referenced in this piece even mentions a buffalo. I am looking into that now.
These explorers of this party are west of the Great Plains. During the 1830 to 1860 period, lets say the Great Plains had 20 million Buffalo, I found this article which tells that around 1870-2 eight million Buffalo were killed in a three year time frame. And then if we picture those vast lands from Texas to Canada, the great Plains, and accounting for twenty million Buffalo, then figure the acres involved of that expanse of land, a party could traverse that land on their way to the Rocky Mountain Area and never see those Buffalo.. And then during that era, if they traveled with meats they smoked it, jerked it, and killed it fresh to eat if the had success hunting it.. Obviously the great plains had plentiful grass and the Rockies were just as bone dry and desert like then as now.. I have found Buff Skulls while antler hunting in the Jim Bridger Wilderness (Teton) and the Big Horn National Forest, in the late 1970s.. I thought at that time those skulls had been there since the 1880s, I doubt that now, I think those Buffalo skulls were alive well into the 20th century.. Still with eye sockets, and nose piece including the teeth area, seems to me those skulls did not lay there 100 years.. I think Jedediah and crew ate fine around the Teton area, but again once they left that little paradise and reached out to distant mountain ranges, they were gambling that the would eat at those places.. Jedediah was attacked and mauled by a grizzly in the Teton area.. He might have been Moose hunting..
WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAMED…
http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/oldzephyr/archives/buffalo.html
Makes sense.Thanks Greg
Good point on the whole essay….man has enriched the country more than any other “event”, and man’s presence helps more than hinders the animals in his environment…(at least if he is a farmer, or rancher, or even a hunter who like to help wildlife in his area) He has watered the deserts, and the areas where he first came, which were barren, he has planted and nourished, and the areas where there was no food, he has planted and watered…..and the wildlife has benefited immensely, irregardless of whether or not the environmental nitwits could recognize it.. Now, if you could get Lee to understand that….
A good example of how ranchers benefit the deer population, can be seen in the early hours, when hunters and ranchers get up, and city suburbanites are still in their jammies, and the deer that have been feeding on the alfalfa crops all night, are gone to the foothills for more seclusion….
And down here, in the Southland, where Mr. Bob White, which never flourished in the bulk of the “native” land, returned to fatten himself on the crop edges, and retired to the briars for protection…Of course, thousands of examples are available, but the point is, is that man’s presence has facilitated, rather than diminished the presence of wildlife…..
I just picked up the first of my three Journals of Lewis and Clark in which it is describing a buffalo hunt (in current N Dakota where they wintered with the Mandin Indians) on December 7th; the temperature was about zero F. Reportedly Captain Clark killed ten bison but only got 5 of them back to camp. It then recounts the protocol of utilizing excess bison by the native population. What ever was left out overnight was taken by the wolves “which are the constant and numerous attendants of the buffalos”.
On Feb . 5 – 12 , 1805 a hunting party went down the Missouri River from the Mandan fort. They killed at least 10 elk and more than 21 deer during the period; they built a pen to keep the game from the wolves. Sacajawea had a kid while they were away hunting.
April 25,1805 Missouri to the Musselshell Montana:
Game is very abundant; mule deer, elk, buffalo, brown bear, beaver, and geese.
June 4th ; game is very abundant.
No dog bartering yet.
mike d,
You are claiming the Missouri River was an established road and that
L & C had guides? Of course they relied on native populations for as much information as they could. Not to have done so would have been suicidal.
The Corps of Discovery went up the Missouri looking for the Shoshone. That’s why they brought Sacajawea along. They knew if they didn’t obtain horses and guides, they wouldn’t have made it to the Pacific. From the Beaverhead on they followed established roads or river routes in canoes. When they occasionally deviated from the main road, as they did along the Lolo Trail, they nearly died.
Are you reading Moulton? That’s the definitive text.
My point is that they did not bushwack through wilderness. The roads they traveled had been used for millennia. Wherever they went, human beings had been residing in for 10,000+ years.
Re the wildlife. The only places where game was abundant was in border areas between tribes. No Mans Land, where the danger of warfare kept hunters out.
Read: Kay, Charles E. 2007. Were native people keystone predators? A continuous-time analysis of wildlife observations made by Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806. Canadian Field-Naturalist 121(1): 1–16.
http://tinyurl.com/yfbxf5q
Re the wilderness myth.
Read: William Denevan. 1992. The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492. Annals of the American Association of Geographers v. 82 n. 3 (Sept. 1992), pp. 369-385.
http://tinyurl.com/q5na2r
Good links and info Mike. Thanks
But but but but the Subsidized Rockefeller – Dewey – Government approved University taught me other wise… This was a pristine Wilderness with eight foot tall grasses, five hundred foot tall trees, with stupid ignorant red savages camping in it, good thing the Europeans came along and saved them poor heathen critters.. Columbus found it dontcha ya Know !! Ohio State told me so, They have a lot of books at that place.. (rolls eyes)..
But but but but Mike ! Priest Maughan has already debunked the Lewis and Clark expedition as group of wolf hating liars…
I couldn’t resist and I am not sorry at all.. ha ha ha…
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The part if the trip where L&C had the least wild game was on the well established indian trail from the Bitterroot Valley in Montana across the Lolo into Idaho. They were in heavy timber and ate horsemeat. This is the same area that burned extensively in 1910 and several subsequent years, establishing brush areas that were conducive to growing elk populations. Elk numbers were down before the introduction of wolves and the massive death of game in the severe winter of 1996-97 further depressed their numbers.
Lee,
Also 1992-93 was another devastating winter kill off. I personally found hundreds of dead deer and elk in the spring of 1993. As well we made the news back then, it was either channel 2 or 7 out of Boise, and we presented a necklace of over 300 elks ivory’s taken from dead elk in one drainage. The winter die offs show that studies and models were in error which showed that the elk and deer of Idaho could handle the reintroduction of wolves. This mistake combined with the wolf population explosion did not allow for a proper recovery of ungulates, the deer never recovered, at all.. Wolf management should have happened no later than 2002-03. I believe Mech is correct that estimates of wolf populations are low, what did he say ? 10% low. I think his estimation is low.
Correction, I meant
Could not handle the reintroduction of wolves..
A brand new area of attack regarding wilderness!
Former USFS Wilderness Manager : Thomas Kovalicky Declaration
Trying again:
Thomas Kovalicky Declaration
Lee,
The Lolo Trail was a foot road. The Flatheads and Nez Perce obtained horses no more than 30 years before L&C came through. Prior to that they walked everywhere. The blowdown on the Lolo Trail did not impede travelers on foot, but it did cause problems for horses. The Lolo Trail is very ancient.
The Corps of Discovery went off the ridge road on side trails that went down to the Lochsa River and dead-ended there. Lots of nice anthropogenic meadows along the river, but no through road in the canyon bottom. That’s how and why they got hung up and had to eat their horses. When they came back that way a year later, they did not deviate from the main ridge road and so had no problems.
Dewey? Wasn’t he one of Donald Duck’s nephews?
I wonder how old the Lolo Trail really is ? That trail is really the Centennial trail, leaving Nevada at Three Creeks, Glens Ferry, Fairfeild, Sawtooth Wilderness, Stanley, Frank Church Wilderness, Elk City, Mullah, Leaves Idaho at British Colombia.. I have Traversed 60% of the trail..
It is kinda funny, we knew about the trail a lot longer than the 1986 ” trail originators”.
http://idahocentennialtrail.blogspot.com/
Yep, Uncle Walt, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Dewey, All Communist Party Members.
Greg, and I always thought that the Lolo trail went from Lolo Montana about 100 miles west to the Weippe Prairie in the central Clearwater River area and is perpendicular to the course of the Centenial trail. I have driven the Lolo motorway built by the CCC during the 1930s. It follows a high ridge north of the Lochsa River and highway 12. The native Americans in the Northwest used it to gain access to the buffolo in Montana. and the plains people to collect salmon in the Columbia.
The Centenial Trail of which you speak appears to be a new trail promoted by Roger Williams and Syd Tate who were the first to select this route in 1986 and then promoted it for selection in 1990 for the centenial celebration. So apparently it is not an old indian trail but a modern trail for hikers.
http://idahoptv.org/outdoors/shows/centennialtrail/maps.cfm
http://idahoptv.org/outdoors/shows/centennialtrail/originators.cfm
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/lewisandclark/site4.htm
Lee is correct about the Lolo Trail used by Nez Perce and L&C. I never heard of the other one. Also, I live in Oregon and have never driven Hwy 12, Lewiston to Missoula, but it’s on my list of things to do someday. That entire area is drenched with history. It’s like the Silk Road over the Khyber Pass.
Actually a lot of the Southern part of the Centennial Trail is difficult to recognize. But I am certain it is older than 1986 because historically many parts of it can be traced back to the pioneer era and the gold rush camps.. And below the Nevada line we have the Jarbridge Range, then Wells, Elko, Montecello, and all that Salt by the Salt lake.. That would have been a good route for Wagons and mules, because there was water and wood.. But who knows.
I heard old men from the Atanta logging and Mining days in the early 70s talking of a trail from Nevada to Canada, they called it and old Spanish route.. One thing about it, there sure are a lot of old mines along it, as well as those old Spanish ways of marking things, to old banks, or mines, the way they used to crop tree patches, or remove brush, or cut all the branches from certain sides of trees. Hell who knows, I wish I was 19 again and it was 1850, I’d go pull it with a string or die trying..
The old trail from Idaho City to the Lowman Stanley junction sure does not go the way of the established roads. That trail is a toughy to figure out if a person does not know what to look for.. And they pulled wagons over it.. I have done that entire route with horse and mule.. That old trail is visible along highway 21 from Lowman to Stanley..
Of course a 10 year old ladd listening to 70 year old mountain men while sitting on a camp chair, in the hot 1969 sun in the Primitive Area 10 miles up river above Grandjean could have misunderstood what they were teaching me about what their grandfathers told them..
Damn I love this country, I best go bust me some powder again tomorrow..
Mike D
Highway 12 is a scenic trip for sure. Don’t miss the Lolo Motorway. It’s easier and more economical to drive down than up; access it from Powell on the Lochsa. My trip there was in the mid 1980s and I spent 12 hours on that portion of the road. What a treat!
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