The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Below is an excerpt from"Chief Joseph Country, Land of the Nez Perce" by Bill Gulick, 1985.

"Inside the Lewis and Clark State Park, there is a plaque that states:

In early May of 1806, Lewis and Clark passed through here on their return from the Pacific Ocean heading East and they would complete their epoch making journey in St. Louis Sept. 23. While in the region, the hungry men ate cow parsnip and doc for lack of better provisions.

Since they (the Nez Perce Indians) accepted the environment as they found it and did not try to alter it, food gathering was the principal occupation nine months out of the year. hellip; Most of the salmon the Nez Perce depended upon for food were caught in July, August and September. When properly dried in the sun or smoked over a slow-burning fire of willow or alder in a lodge, this protein-rich meat would keep well through the winter.

Edible roots were part of the Nez Perce diet. One of these was the biscuit root, called Kouse, by the Indians.

The plants are among the first plants to bloom in the spring hellip; The fresh roots have a parsnip-like flavor, but upon drying, become brittle and white with a somewhat celery taste.

Because of the importance of Kouse as a nourishing, easily gathered food that became available at a time when hunger stalked the land, the Nez Perce called the month of May 'Ah-pah, ahl,' which means 'season of making (baked loaf) from ground Kouse.'

As the plaque states, 'May of 1806' hellip; For the Nez Perce, this was the hungriest time of the year, for by now, most of the stored food supply was gone and salmon had not yet returned to the rivers.

Clark records the generosity of a Nez Perce man who offered to give him 12 small fish, 'which I declined accepting as I found a short distance above was his house and that those fisheries offered were the principle part of food for his children.'"

We owe a lot to the Nez Perce in more ways than one because of their friendly nature, generosity and willingness to guide Lewis and Clark might just have saved their lives.