Winding through the arid region of modern-day north central Nevada, the Humboldt River provided resources to support communities of a few hundred people. Punodungahnivain, or “Place where the house is” in Western Shoshone, was an area at the mouth of the South Fork River, between modern-day Carlin, Elko, and South Fork, that was home to Western Shoshone.

Water—and therefore the river—is sacred for the Western Shoshone, or “Newe” meaning “The People.” The Humboldt represents an important thoroughfare in ancient and modern trade routes, connecting goods from the Pacific with those in the Great Basin and western Rocky Mountains. The fertile river enabled Indigenous communities to thrive between modern-day Carlin and Elko. Roots and berries grew along the river, attracting birds and animals, and pine nut resources grew in the nearby Ruby mountains. The Shoshones hunted waterfowl, antelope, trout, gopher, rabbit, and beaver.

Trappers such as Peter Skene Ogden from the Hudson’s Bay Company arrived in the Humboldt region in the 1820s. They trapped as many beavers as possible in order to make it unprofitable for their competition, nearly wiping out the beaver population for a generation. After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, miners and settlers traveled along the Humboldt by the tens of thousands, negatively impacting the environment, depleting finite resources, and disrupting Indigenous lifeways. The California Trail transected Western Shoshone Territory throughout the 1840s through 1860s. Then, in the 1860s, the Central Pacific Railroad began building their Railroad from Sacramento, California, westward towards Utah Territory to join with the Union Pacific at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869.

By the time CPRR worker Alfred A. Hart took the photo below, dated between 1865 and 1869, natural resources had already been depleted all along the Humboldt. Hart took hundreds of photographs as he traveled with the company, and many of them feature Shoshones. The completion of the railroad brought even more people west, who settled near the tracks in order to benefit from future commerce. These newcomers claimed the most fertile places for themselves and divided up ancestral Shoshone and Paiute lands.

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Before the days of irrigation water and hydroelectricity, Shoshone Falls was an amazing sight to behold, water plunging 212 feet over the rocks, with the roar of the falls heard up to ten miles away. The falls created an impassable barrier for the migrating steelhead and salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn. In the spring, Indigenous people living throughout the Snake River Plain formed small bands to capture fish from the river and it remained an important area for Natives to gather, fish, and trade. Downstream, fish were plentiful and provided life-sustaining food and an important component of Shoshone culture and spirituality.

Archaeologists insist Shoshone Falls was formed over 14,500 years ago when Lake Bonneville catastrophically flooded during the Pleistocene Ice Age. A traditional Shoshone-Bannock story denotes a different story explaining the cosmology of the Shoshone/Snake River. Ejuba, a coyote, went fishing in the country of Yellowstone. On his way home, the fish and the water in his lined basket became too heavy to carry and he tripped and spilled the contents. Although he tried several times to build various rocky dams to contain the spilled water, it continually rushed over and created several waterfalls. The river that Ejuba created is known today as the Snake River. The first dam he built was Idaho Falls, the second was American Falls, and the third dam split into two parts to become Twin Falls. The last and largest dam Ejuba constructed was Shoshone Falls. Another Shoshone tale describes a maiden distraught over the separation from her lover who hurled herself into the Snake River canyon at a point near the edge of the falls, a fenced off area known as “Lover’s Leap.”

Shoshone Falls has undergone tremendous changes. The once roaring waters that were heard from miles away now dwindle to a stream. The demand for water to irrigate the land and the desire for clean hydroelectricity dictates the amount of water that plunges over the falls. When visiting the falls on such a day it is hard to imagine that a writer once compared Shoshone Falls to Niagara Falls saying, “Surely there must be a God above. . .who made these Western Falls, which soon shall mock the magic art of Eastern ones and sink them into insignificance.” Visit the falls in the early Spring if you hope to catch a glimpse of its original majesty at maximum flow.

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Bear Lake is a natural freshwater lake that is 18 miles long and 7 miles wide. It straddles the border between Utah and Idaho, which passes through the center of the lake. Renowned for its bright blue waters, thanks to the limestone in the mountains surrounding it, Bear Lake has been dubbed the Caribbean of the Rockies. The lake and surrounding communities are also well known for the famous “Bear Lake raspberries” that grow in the area and the associated Raspberry Days festival held every August. In recent years the lake has become a tourism hot spot with vacation homes and resorts spreading along its shores. The Shoshone inhabitants of the valley historically used the Bear Lake area for food; they fished the lake’s waters and hunted in the surrounding mountains. They called the lake “sweet lake” due to its exceptionally clear water, and the first European fur traders adopted the name “Sweet Lake” for the body of water. The name “Bear Lake” came about when a Scotsman named Donald McKenzie paddled up the Bear River in 1818. When he found the lake he named it “Black Bear Lake,” but later trappers soon dropped the adjective “Black” so the lake’s name matched the river. Fur trapping continued in the area but sharply increased in 1827 when mountain men held a rendezvous along the southern shore of the lake. Thousands of Natives from many tribes came to trade furs for guns, supplies, and other goods. Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith were among the mountain men in attendance. Mountain men gathered to Bear Lake for another rendezvous in 1828, but it was the last one held in the valley. From 1829 onward, the rendezvous moved into nearby Wyoming, and Shoshones continued to enjoy the Bear Lake Valley. The next group to arrive were laborers from the Logan, Utah area who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes nicknamed “Mormons”) and had come to search for pine trees tall enough to serve as support beams for the Logan Temple then under construction. When their reports of a fertile valley with a large lake reached Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, he sent Church apostle Charles C. Rich to settle the area in 1863. The Mormons initially strove for peaceful relations with the Shoshones, and at first agreed to keep to the northern part of the valley while the Shoshone used the southern part in what is present-day Utah. These Latter-day Saint quickly established the small towns of St. Charles, Montpelier, Ovid, Bennington, and Fish Haven, all named for cities in Brigham Young’s native Vermont. For a few years the valley became known as “Mormon Valley.” As time went on, both the Mormon name and the agreement they had with the Shoshones faded from memory. The Latter-day Saint settlers expanded southward along the banks of the lake, adding the towns of Paris, Garden City, and Laketown.

Bear Lake continues to represent a place where people go to fish, boat, and recreate, just as the Shoshones and fur traders had.

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Utah Lake is a freshwater body situated in the Provo–Orem area of Utah County. The Lake has been utilized for hundreds of years by a variety of Native tribes, including but not limited to the Utes, Paiutes, and Shoshones. A variety of American Indian groups such as the Fremont people lived along the lake’s shores prior to these contemporary tribes, and they all had settlements and benefitted from the lake’s resources and fresh drinking water. Excavation sites organized by archeologist Joel Janetski have yielded a variety of culture-rich native artifacts including arrowheads, beads, shells, cooking utensils, and ceramics like clay pots. The Dominguez and Escalante Expedition of 1776 visited Utah Valley from New Mexico and described the lake and valley in glowing terms. Fur traders also frequented the area in the 1820s and 1830s. In 1847, Euro-American members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entered Utah Valley, and they eventually utilized Utah Lake as a source of food and water for agriculture. This marked the beginning of settler colonialism and Western encroachment into the region which ultimately led to numerous settler–native conflicts over the land around Utah Lake. As one of the largest freshwater lakes west of the Mississippi River, Utah Lake historically was home to a wide variety of fish, bird, and plant species. The water now has high levels of phosphorus and calcium carbonate sediments, a result of pollution. Utah Lake remains an expansive sight for those living in the Provo–Orem area, and residents and visitors sometimes use the lake for watersports in the summer and ice fishing & skating in the winter.

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Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, son of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau, accompanied his parents on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s expedition for the Corps of Discovery. Although a small infant, he made the entire trek from North Dakota to the Pacific Coast and back to the Mandan Villages on the Knife River. After Sacagawea’s death in December 1812, William Clark legally adopted Jean-Baptiste and his little sister Lisette. Clark provided an education for the two children at a Catholic boarding school in St. Louis. This education opened up numerous opportunities for Jean-Baptiste throughout his life. As an adult, Jean-Baptiste spent a substantial amount of time in Europe where he learned additional languages and skills. Returning to America, he joined the fur trade, working as a trapper with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. His extensive knowledge of the terrain enabled him to serve as a guide for explorers, as well as for the Mormon Battalion on their route from Leavenworth to San Diego in 1846 during the Mexican–American War. While in California, Charbonneau worked as an alcalde (mayor), panned for gold, provided interpretation services, and operated a hotel in Auburn, California. After the American Civil War and toward the end of his life, Charbonneau worked odd jobs until he learned about gold and silver strikes in Idaho and Montana. On his way to the mining rushes he traveled through Danner, Oregon, but shortly after crossing the Jordan Creek and the Owyhee River, he fell ill (likely of pneumonia) and died at sixty-one years old. Oregonians memorialized Charbonneau by erecting and dedicating a plaque to him in Danner. His place of death is located just over the border of Oregon and is close to the Lemhi Shoshone Nation of Idaho, the likely birthplace of his mother, Sacagawea.

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More than two centuries have passed since the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled to the Pacific and back, and the expedition and its members continue to generate interest. Aside from the leaders, Meriweather Lewis and William Clark, Sacagawea may be the best-known member of the expedition. When she was around sixteen years old, she gave birth to her first child, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Two months later she departed on the expedition with her husband and child in tow. She made it the entire journey while carrying and tending to her child and simultaneously helping the efforts of the expedition. Her main role in the expedition was as an interpreter between the party and Shoshones. She was likely born into the Lemhi Shoshone tribe around 1788, and her birthplace may have been somewhere between Kenney Creek and Agency Creek in Tendoy, Idaho.  Since the Lemhi Shoshone lived along the river, they fished for salmon as a dietary staple. From a young age, Sacagawea contributed to her family by gathering and preparing food. Recently, oral histories have made claims Sacagawea was Hidatsa, not Shoshone. While there is currently some controversy surrounding precisely what tribe Sacagawea came from, history does not dispute that Sacagawea lived part of her life with the Hidatsas. She did tell Lewis and Clark that she was captured while traveling across the Rocky Mountains and adopted into the Hidatsa Nation as a child and her new name was Sacagawea, meaning Bird Woman or Eagle Woman. It is likely that she learned additional agricultural skills from the Hidatsas, where she resided until her marriage as a plural wife to Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian explorer. Although forced to leave her childhood homeland in Idaho, Sacagawea returned to the Lemhi Valley with Lewis and Clark, reuniting with the Shoshones. She then reunited with her tribal family in the place she was born and celebrated her reunion with her brother Cameahwait before continuing her journey to the Pacific.

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Sacagawea has inspired countless girls to have greater strength and courage in their lives. Around age 16, this Lemhi Shoshone young woman joined Lewis and Clark on their journey across the American West, acting as an interpreter and occasional guide. She did this while carrying her baby Jean Baptiste upon her back. What the Lewis and Clark Expedition achieved was impressive, but what Sacagawea achieved seems heroic and unimaginable. Despite the important place Sacagawea holds in American history, the stories regarding her death remain contested. Some insist she died in December 1812 in South Dakota at the age of 24. Others contend she lived to age 96 and died on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming Territory in 1884, reunited with her Shoshone kinsmen. The Hidatsa use Sacagawea (meaning Bird Woman or Eagle Woman). Shoshones used Sacajawea (meaning boat-pusher). Between 1825 and 1828, William Clark created a list of the expedition members of the Corps of Discovery and identified where each of them were. Next to Sacagawea’s name he wrote, “dead.” This matches other primary accounts that record one of Toussaint Charbonneau’s wives died at Fort Manuel in December 1812. Additional primary sources indicate that Clark adopted her two children, Jean Baptiste and Lisette, the following year in 1813, offering additional credence to the notion that she likely died in December 1812. Clark’s record conflicts with Shoshone oral histories about Bird Woman’s life and death recorded by University of Wyoming historian Grace Hebard in the early twentieth century. She interviewed several Shoshones and recorded their traditions. They described Sacagawea having left her abusive husband Charbonneau and traveled to Colorado territory to live with her cousins, the Comanches. She purportedly married a warrior named Jerk Meat, raised a family, and eventually returned home to live out her twilight years with the Eastern Shoshone on the Wind River Reservation. There she lived out her last days with her son Jean Baptiste and eventually died in peace. Her son is also reported by some to have died there and to be buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the Wind River Mountain range. Other accounts clearly identify Jean Baptiste Charbonneau as dying in Danner, Oregon in 1866. It is conceivable that these oral accounts attributed to the Bird Woman may also refer to another Shoshone woman who had life experiences similar to Sacagawea. No matter where her final resting place is, the grave in the Ethete cemetery marked with Sacajawea’s name stands as an important historical landmark because of how it honors this great Shoshone woman, pays tribute to her memory, and recognizes her contributions to history. While the spot marked here at the Sacajawea Cemetery near Fort Washakie, Wyoming may not be her actual resting place, it is still a remarkable place to visit for any American who wants to celebrate the life of this great explorer, or for any woman who wants to connect with a true heroine.

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After the tragic assault by Colonel Patrick Conner and his California Volunteers on a peaceful encampment of Shoshone at Bear River on the morning of January 29, 1863, the drastically reduced band of Shoshone spent years roaming Northern Utah without a viable means of subsistence. Eventually, over a hundred members of this small band of Shoshone, led by Chief Sagwitch, converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After several years on their own, Sagwitch appealed to the Church, whose members offered assistance and allowed the band to settle and farm on Church-owned land near the modern Utah–Idaho border in 1880. In addition to the farmland provided by the Church, many members of the band also appealed to the federal government and received land close by under several homesteading acts of the late-nineteenth century. The Shoshone named this community Washakie after a respected leader in the greater Shoshone community who remained an integral part of their nation for almost a century. While at Washakie, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone adapted to the farming lifestyle of the nearby settlers. While doing their best to preserve elements of their culture through regular cultural gatherings and celebrations, the Band also learned new skills and practices from their white neighbors, many of whom came to them from the Church. The Washakie residents learned skills such as carpentry, farming, sheepherding, and firing bricks. They built a church house in the community to use as a place of worship and gathering. The Shoshone at Washakie even used the building as a schoolhouse for a few decades, though the teachers at the Washakie school were White. During Washakie’s heyday, the community thrived as a small city. As time drew on, however, outside pressures pushed many of the Shoshone residents of Washakie out of the community. With the onset of the Second World War, Utah became a center for supporting the war effort. For some Shoshone, better-paying jobs drew them out of residence in Washakie and into areas where they could work Utah’s booming defense industry. This exodus of residents curtailed the Washakie community life possible with the remaining Shoshone population. Because the Church of Jesus Christ still considered itself the owner of Washakie’s land, they began reclaiming it in the summer of 1960 by burning seemingly abandoned homes to the ground so they could sell the plots to nearby farmers. However, many of the homes that appeared to be abandoned were only seasonally empty, as the Shoshone residents often visited their northern relatives on a Shoshone reservation in Idaho or were away for other reasons. The home burning marked the end of the Washakie community and marked the beginning of a tense relationship between the Northwestern Band of Shoshone and the Church. The Northwestern Band of Shoshone, who had been devastated by the violent events of the Bear River Massacre in 1863, once again became victims of whites pushing them off their land and out of their homes. Today, the Washakie community is gone. Only a few structures remain, including the church building and a cemetery.

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Desert National Wildlife Refuge (Desert NWR), the largest national wildlife refuge in the contiguous United States, spans vast tracts of land in Nevada. Adjacent to the Nevada Nuclear Test Site and overlapping the Nellis Air Force Range, the refuge and surrounding preserves form the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex, home to several rare and endangered species such as the Devils Hole pupfish. Though established to preserve Nevada’s natural landscape, various interest groups in the region are in continual conflict over how to use Desert NWR, some sharing its preservationist goals and some not. The US Fish and Wildlife Service created Desert NWR in 1936 primarily to protect desert bighorn sheep. In doing so, the government also recognized southern Nevada’s high biodiversity and varied desert environments, from the oasis of Ash Meadows to the landscape of the Great Basin. However, not all shared this appreciation. When military officials searched for a place to test nuclear weapons in the wake of World War II, they chose Nevada’s “wasteland” as the site that would generate the least collateral damage. The Nuclear Test Site settled in Nye County, Nevada in 1951, coming to rest on land that the Shoshone people had called home for millennia. The Western Shoshone Nation quickly challenged the military’s appropriation, pointing to the terms set in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. Though the US government had acknowledged Shoshone sovereignty in the region, they still asserted that their nuclear agendas took precedent. In addition to the Western Shoshone’s rights to the land, the environmental impact of nuclear testing quickly became a pressing issue due to how far wind carried radioactive remnants of bomb tests. The Test Site terminated above-ground testing in the 1990s and fully closed in 2010. In the late 2010s and early 2020s, however, the federal government continued to encroach on the refuge’s land. Conflicts about the nearby Air Force range have proposed both expanding and withdrawing its reaches, with the debate still ongoing. The presidency of Donald Trump even reopened discussions on the proposed nuclear waste site at nearby Yucca Mountain. The prevalent and continued debate over Nevada desert land shares fundamental elements with many land rights conversations in the West. Paiute and Shoshone presence within the Refuge confines is impossible to ignore, especially with petroglyphs and sacred sites scattered across the landscape. Military presence also touches upon another sensitive topic in Western states—the overwhelming amount of federally-owned land. Much of the strong Nevadan opposition to test site expansion stems from resentment towards the government, as many feel that the state government should maintain more dominion over local land. Yet the state itself continues to violate the dominion of those who have used the land far longer than any Nevada citizen. For a so-called wasteland, the deserts of southern Nevada draw much attention.

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Mae Timbimboo Parry was born May 15, 1919, in Washakie, Utah. Established in the 1880s, Washakie was a homestead for members of the Northwestern Shoshone Tribe, many of whom were descendants of survivors of the Bear River Massacre. During her childhood, Mae attended several schools including the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California as well as the Washakie Day School, both of which were Indian boarding schools designed to assimilate Indian children into American culture. With the motto of “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man,” the schools attempted to strip Native American students of their indigenous cultures and languages in the hopes they would assimilate into mainstream American society. While attending the Washakie Day School, one of Mae’s teachers had her stand in front of class, proceeding to tell her “Mae, you are going to turn out to be just like these other children, sitting in the dirt and being useless for the rest of your life.” Contrary to her teacher’s beliefs, Mae excelled in school. She went to Bear River High School where she began to write all of the oral stories she heard growing up from her tribal leaders as well as her grandfather Da-boo-zee, or Yeager Timbimboo, who was present at the Bear River Massacre. She continued her education at LDS Business College (now called Ensign College), where she earned a degree in English. Throughout her life, Mae continued to share the history of her tribe and was well-known for being a wonderful storyteller. She became the tribal historian and was passionate about passing the stories on to younger generations. Through her meticulous records of oral traditions, Mae was able to shift the dialogue surrounding the Bear River Massacre. Originally, the massacre was remembered as the “Battle of Bear Creek,” and her people were viewed as troublesome Indians that fought against the local militia. Mae corrected the story, showing her people were massacred despite attempts to surrender and make peace, bringing justice to her tribe. During her time as tribal historian, Mae worked with local and federal governments to help all Native Americans. She was a representative on the White House Council for Indian Tribal Affairs where she worked with Native leaders to create and implement programs for Native Americans and distribute resources. She also served on Utah’s Indian Cooperative Council where she helped create the Native American Graves Protections and Repatriation Act, which returned Native American artifacts and human remains to their tribes. Her efforts to serve Native Americans were incredibly valuable. In 1986 she was named “Utah’s Honorary Mother of the Year” and in 1996 she received the Utah Women’s Achievement Award. In addition to preserving her tribal history through words, Mae also carried on family tradition through her beautiful beadwork. Her grandson Darren Parry remembered her constantly working on buckskin gloves, moccasins, or other objects, carefully placing the beads to create beautiful designs. Mae passed away on May 20, 2007 in Clearfield, Utah. Her role as teacher, storyteller, and historian preserved the history of the Northwestern Shoshone Tribe, and her legacy is continued by her grandson Darren, the current tribal historian, who continues to share her stories with the world.

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