Fort Hall

Story number three.

Fort Hall, Bannock County, Idaho, August 2012.

A conversation I had.

All the activity mentioned is southeast Idaho near Fort Hall, like the camping trip with rocks was around Fort Hall, Idaho, where there is a lot of Bannock and Shoshone Native Americans.

Every fall, I drive up Highway I-15 from southern California to Montana to hunt with friends there.

I tend to find myself stopping in Pocatello, Idaho, for a motel and also visit a certain bar there.

I thought to myself, here's another person who might think I'm a nut job.

But then Gary turned around slowly and facing me he said, three times.

When they stopped for luncheon, the missionaries fastened a blanket to the tops of four sticks stuck in the ground, or across sagebrush, so that they might have a little shelter from the sun.

Their first stopping point, after joining the party of the Hudson's Bay Company, was at Fort Hall, about forty miles from where Fort Hall City is today.

The Whitmans and Spaldings reached Fort Hall after days of fearful heat.

The fort was a small one, but the welcome given them was cordial.

Trees grew along the banks of the little stream, which rippled and chattered over its rocky bed.

The officer told him with entire honesty that it would be impossible to take the wagons with him.

Every officer of the Hudson's Bay Company would have said the same thing.

In their private letters to each other they said it was impossible to get a wagon through from Fort Hall to Oregon.

There were two overland routes from this point.

The northern one followed the Oregon Trail to Fort Hall and from there crossed by way of the Humboldt River and over the Sierra Nevadas to California.

The southern route followed the Santa Fe Trail to Santa Fe, where the immigrants divided, a part taking the old Spanish trail to the north, and a part General Kearny's route along the Gila on the south.

While some of the immigrants went as individuals, by far the larger number went in companies.

Meeting with only moderate success, they made their way to the Big Snake River.

After remaining there a considerable time, the party divided, the Hudson Bay trader and his friends going northward toward Fort Walla Walla, while Carson and the larger number set out for Fort Hall.

The journey thither was one of the most distressing which Kit Carson ever undertook.

The country through which most of the march led is one of the most dismal wastes on the American continent.

But Carson succeeded, and when the equine was slaughtered and broiled, the trappers enjoyed one of the most delicious feasts of their lives.

They filled themselves to repletion, and felt that the enjoyment it brought was almost worth the suffering they had undergone to obtain it.

When their strength was recruited, they resumed their journey, and a few days later reached Fort Hall.

There they found abundance of food and received a cordial welcome.

There were two overland routes from this point.

The northern one followed the Oregon Trail to Fort Hall and from there crossed by way of the Humboldt River and over the Sierra Nevadas to California.

The southern route followed the Santa Fe Trail to Santa Fe, where the immigrants divided, a part taking the old Spanish trail to the north and a part General Kearny's route along the Gila on the south.

While some of the immigrants went as individuals, by far the larger number went in companies.

There were two overland routes from this point.

The northern one followed the Oregon Trail to Fort Hall and from there crossed by way of the Humboldt River and over the Sierra Nevadas to California.

The southern route followed the Santa Fe Trail to Santa Fe, where the emigrants divided, a part taking the old Spanish trail to the north, and a part General Kearny's route along the Gila on the south.

While some of the emigrants went as individuals, by far the larger number went in companies.

He was the little boy under the wagon, and he was the Taos lad who won the Kit Carson rifle.

He was upon the Fremont and Carson first expedition, and he was upon the second expedition by way of the Salt Lake to Fort Hall.

However, there he turned back with other Carson men.

In taking him through, as in having him ascend the highest peak, voids the Salt Lake in the rubber boat, and be prominent in various such adventures, I have added to his biography as told to me.

How runs the road to the Columbia, the remaining part of this Oregon Trail? At the foot of the pass thars the Little Sandy and the Big Sandy Rivers, an all-flat desert clear to the crossing o' the Green River.

Then it gets rougher from the Green west to the Bear and on northwest up the Bear to the Soddy Springs.

Then it air on westward and northward from the Bar to Fort Hall at the Snake, west up along the Snake, or what some call the Lewis Ford o' the Columbia, a two weeks' march across the plains o' the Snake and bad country beyond to Fort Bois toward the mouth o' the Snake.

Then it's across the Blue Mountains to the Columbia and from thar it air about two hundred miles to Vancouver, they say.

Blackfoot, yeah.

Yeah, born and raised around Blackfoot area, Blackfoot, Fort Hall.

Went to high school at Snake River and went to all school through Snake River, Riverside.

And we lived on the reservation until I was like four.

do? Um, vaguely, vaguely.

I, I, the thing.

Fort Hall? Yeah.

Right outside Fort Hall.