Indian Forts and Religious Icons: The Buffalo Road (Qoq’aalx ‘Iskit) Trail Before and After the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Abstract

The Buffalo Road Trail was used for centuries by Columbia Plateau Indians to access buffalo hunting grounds east of the Continental Divide. Peeled trees, rock cairns, and unique stone features represent archaeological signatures of the trail’s antiquity and demonstrate its extensive use. Ancient trails linked pre-contact camps and settlements and allowed for the diffusion of a variety of cultural items. From a landscape perspective, trails provide information relative to pre-contact travel, subsistence, trade, and warfare. Although significant to the indigenous people in the region, this and other trails were also used by European and American groups colonizing the American West over the past several centuries. Captain Meriwether Lewis, Jesuit missionary, Nicolas Point, and General John Gibbon were among those who traveled this well worn Indian road. Archaeological studies, oral histories and ethnographic and historical information underscore the importance of the trail to pre-contact, protohistoric, and historic people.