Also read:

Lemhi-Shoshone contributions which saved the Lewis & Clark Expedition more than once:

Sacajawea

Camp Fortunate

Shoshone Horses

Old Toby

Special Features & Articles

National Geographic - Searching for Sacagawea

Idaho Statesman Special Feature - Sacajawea, Her Story by Her People

New York Times - Sacajawea's People seek a homecoming

Professor Orlan Svingen - WSU - Assisiting Lemhi-Shoshone to regain federal recognition

Trail Tribes - Focus on Sacagawea's descendants, traditions, customs, photos, petroglyphs & more

Sacagawea descendants to help dedicate ship - Indianz.comNAVY USNS Sacagawea (T-AKE 2)

Yellowstone - Park News/Blog - Lemhi-Shoshone's Sacajawea

The Lemhi-Shoshone Proudly supports the - Western Shoshone Defense Project

Lemhi County Historical Society & Museum

NCRSM Call To Action! - Salmon Savages High School, Salmon, ID (Current mascot issue)

Idaho BLM - Native Voices Legends of Creation and Place

Xenite - Mizuo Peck- is Sacagawea in "Night at the Museum"

Western Institute For Study of the Environment - The People Who Lived Among the Clouds

Sacajawea Center - Interpretive, Cultural, and Educational

Bringing Awareness - Metis Society of Oregon

Lemhi Pass

August 8, 1805

Sacajawea points to a high formation called by her people (Lemhi Shoshone) the Beaver's Head because this is shaped like that animals head and this is route utilized by her tribe every summer on their way to hunt the buffalo and the expedition will soon find her people. * South of Dillon, Montana just east of Lemhi Pass which leads into Lemhi Valley.

August 13, 1805

Captain Lewis and members of the expedition encounter Lemhi Shoshone on the western side of Lemhi Pass, sixty mounted warriors engage this group as warning was echoed throughout the valley as intruders entered the homelands of the Lemhi- Shoshone.

August 16, 1805

Sacajawea is reunited with her people the Lemhi Shoshone, she soon recognizes her brother Chief Camehwait - emotional reunion. Sacajawea facilitates the dialogue to assist the expedition to acquire the essential horses and guide, to continue with the expedition over Lost Trail Pass.

Sacajawea continues with the expedition, the promises made by the Lewis and Clark to the Lemhi Shoshone is eminent on the expedition's success. Old Toby (Swooping Eagle) was also directed to assist the expedition to the land of the Nez Perce.

There were at least 3 times that Lemhi-Shoshone were crucial in helping Lewis & Clark to survive and succeed:

1. Sacagawea Lewis & Clark hired her husband, Touissant Charbonneau, at Mandan as an interpreter. She saved their instruments, books, medicines, and probably THE JOURNALS THEMSELVES when her husband swamped one of the canoes and the items were floating away. She also helped them when by coincidence her brother, Cameahwait, was the chief of the Lemhi-Shoshone. She guided the expedition only a few times; in the Three Forks area of SW Montana she began to recognize landmarks such as the Beaver head landmark so Lewis & Clark knew they were in the right area to find her people the Lemhi-Shoshone.

When the expedition broke into 4 separate groups, she guided Clark and 10 others towards the Yellowstone River, July 1806. She also found plants for Lewis to record and collect for Jefferson, and she provided edible plants for the Corps to eat. She and her baby also helped the Corps show Indians that they were peaceful and were not war parties. Indian war & raiding parties did not bring women or babies.

2. The Lemhi-Shoshone near Lemhi Pass sold Lewis & Clark 28 horses. By 1805 the Lemhi-Shoshone had about 700 (barb) horses, including some mules. Some of the mules had Spanish Brands, and Meriwether Lewis observed stirrups and other articles of Spanish tack (horse gear).

It took them 11 days for the expedition led by Old Toby to cross the mountains to the Nez Perce people, they were nearly dead and starved as it was. They ultimately ate 4 or 5 of the barb horses for food. (Lewis and Clark descendants are often teased by Lemhi-Shoshone: :"...that, we hope they don't eat our horses.") :P The lack of firearms left the Lemhi-Shoshone at the mercy of the Eastern American Indians who had guns. The Lemhi-Shoshone of 1805 fought on horseback and commonly used the bow and arrow, shield, lance and poggamoggon (a weapon with a leather-covered wood handle and a thong at one end tied to a 2-pound leather-covered round stone).

3. Old Toby - If Lewis & Clark would have tried to cross the Rockies without a guide, they would have perished for certain. The Lemhi-Shoshone provided them *Old Toby and he guided them through the Bitterroot mountains. The and Agaidikas and Tukudikas who make up the Lemhi-Shoshone Tribes are considered the first residents of the upper Lemhi Valley, dating back 12,000 years or more. Archaeological research indicates that buffalo, when present were hunted throughout the 12,000 years of Indian occupancy of the Lemhi Valley.