River-Horse: A Voyage Across America (62 page)

The Salmon River is one of the upper branches of the Oregon or Columbia and takes its rise from various sources among a group of mountains to the northwest of the Wind River chain. It owes its name to the immense shoals of salmon which ascend it in the months of September and October. The salmon on the west side of the Rocky Mountains are, like the buffalo on the eastern plains, vast migratory supplies for the wants of man, that come and go with the seasons. As the buffalo in countless throngs find their certain way in the transient pasturage on the prairies, along the fresh banks of the rivers, and up every alley and green defile of the mountains, so the salmon at their allotted seasons, regulated by a sublime and all-seeing Providence, swarm in myriads up the great river and find their way up their main branches, and into the minutest tributary streams so as to pervade the great arid plains and to penetrate even among barren mountains. Thus wandering tribes are fed in the desert places of the wilderness, where there is no herbage for the animals of the chase, and where, but for these periodical supplies, it would be impossible for man to subsist.

The rapid currents of the rivers which run into the Pacific render the ascent of them very exhausting to the salmon. When the fish first run up the rivers, they are fat and in fine order. The struggle against impetuous streams and frequent rapids gradually renders them thin and weak, and great numbers are seen floating down the river on their backs. As the season advances and the water becomes chilled, they are flung in myriads on the shores, where the wolves and bears assemble to banquet on them. Often they rot in such quantities along the river banks as to taint the atmosphere. They are commonly from two to three feet long.

Washington Irving

The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West
, 1843

O
F AMERICAN RIVERS
outside Alaska, the undammed Salmon, the River of No Return, is one of the longest entirely within a single state, and probably the most unabused big one, chiefly because its lower two thirds passes through the least accessible large tract in the contiguous forty-eight, a fiercely mountainous region where roads cease and humans thin to almost nothing along a chasm deeper than the Grand Canyon and second only to Hell’s Canyon not far distant; for 180 miles the Salmon gorge is more than a mile down. It is the only river Lewis and Clark turned away from. Meriwether wrote of Sacagawea’s brother explaining the terrain:

I now prevailed on the Chief to instruct me with rispect to the geography of his country. This he undertook very cheerfully by delienating the rivers on the ground. But I soon found that his information fell far short of my expectation or wishes. . . . He placed a number of heeps of sand on each side which he informed me represented the vast mountains of rock eternally covered with snow through which the river passed. That the perpendicular and even juting rocks so closely hemned in the river that there was no possibilyte of passing along the shore; that the bed of the river was obstructed by sharp pointed rocks and the rapidity of the stream such that the whole surface of the river was beat into perfect foam as far as the eye could reach. That the mountains were also inaccesible to man or horse. He said that this being the state of the country in that direction that himself nor none of his nation had ever been further down the river than these mountains.

Not fully trusting Indian geography, Clark followed a “wolf path” over the high and broken north bank for fourteen miles only to reach a vista running to a horizon of ridge after ridge of rough metamorphic rock uplifted into a chaos of ten-thousand-foot mountains. He said:

This river is about 100 yards wide and can be forded but in a few places. Below my guide and maney other Indians tell me that the Mountains Close and is a perpendicular Clift on each Side, and Continues for great distance and that the water runs with great violence from one rock to the other on each Side foaming & roreing thro rocks in every direction So as to render the passage of any thing impossible.

Clark, who not once recorded a disparaging word about his friend, named this most difficult of rivers, the impossible one, the Lewis, and the Expedition bypassed it to go north into mountains that nearly killed them before they reached easier descent on the Clearwater. A century later, a settler said the Salmon gorge looked like “Creation chopped it out with a hatchet.”

We planned to put in immediately above the mouth of the Lemhi, at the island under the Main Street Bridge in the county-seat town of Salmon, and follow the morning shadow of the Continental Divide twenty-two miles to North Fork where the river turns west to assume broad bends and a generally direct course toward the Pacific. The rock-riven river drops more than three thousand feet from our starting place to the mouth, a distance of only 130 air miles. Pilotis said, “This isn’t a river—it’s a wet elevator.” If we could stay off boulders and get through sixty-some rapids, the least of them greater than anything we’d yet encountered, the hard current would give us a swift float. On the international rating scale, rapids on the Salmon range up to 4 (“difficult”), with the exception of the one nearly at its mouth, a mean constriction with the seemingly playful name of the Slide which in high water can become a class 6, “a substantial hazard to life.” I asked a fellow, What’s it like? “Roughern a stucco bathtub.” Because of our assigned departure date, we could not wait for the water to subside even though we knew the final rapid was at that moment impassable by boat or on foot. If the Salmon didn’t drop sufficiently before we reached the Slide, we’d be trapped there until it did.

The ominous nickname River of No Return refers not to self-destruction but to the inability of early-day boats to ascend againstcurrent
and rocks; a scowman might dare his way down, but he couldn’t fight his way back up. Other than my wish to follow westering American history, it was the Salmon that made me decide months earlier not to cross America west to east and thereby gain twenty-five hundred miles of down-bound Missouri River. From the late nineteenth century to the Second World War, big wooden scows carrying cargo (and an occasional tourist) to gold mines and a few homesteads all ended up as tunnel shoring, barroom floors, brothel walls, outhouse seats. With the advent fifty years ago of powerful, lightweight vessels, especially the jet boat, the Salmon became a River of Grudging Return because what it lacks in depth and width and open channels it makes up for in velocity and turbulence, and its comparative narrowness is a poor measure of its power, its beauty a subterfuge for potential havoc. Our chart book warned, “The Salmon is not a place for the novice boater. Accidents can occur in seconds, but rescue can take many hours. The cost in both lives and dollars can be enormous.” Of the rivers we’d used or would yet use, the Salmon had by far the fewest travelers but, I suspected, the highest fatality rate.

On a Tuesday morning in early July, we assembled beneath the bridge to meet our outfitter, don life vests, and get in his twenty-two-foot Hypalon raft, a flexible boat stiffened by a steel frame. Under fair skies we set out on a kind of shakedown cruise before all of our contingent joined us at the entrance to the so-called primitive area where stone vies with water for mastery of the gorge. Our helmsman was Bill Bernt, a former Nebraskan by way of Missouri, now a two-decade resident of the Salmon country, a forty-seven-year-old who knew the river and its lore—a craftsman of cataracts. For a few days I was de-skippered and could sit back to take in the territory and enjoy the first leg of our coast to the coast. Again, because of a frequent certain sameness hour to hour, I will push along the narrative with my logbook:

TUESDAY, DAY ONE

B[ill] B[ernt] lanky, boy’s face still showing beneath weathering; thinning hair almost always under hat to keep pate from western sun; in college studied “something that had to do with angiosperms and gymnosperms, and I’ve forgotten much of even that.” Speaks slowly, calmly, precisely, western drawl; calls his outfitting company Aggipah, shortened version of Shoshone name for the Salmon, Tom-agit-pah, “Big-fish-water.” He guesses current at seven mph. Almost immediately we pass through several standing waves that raft tries to bend itself to fit, water we begin calling jolly rollers or, where accompanied by a “pit,” holey rollers. BB sits amidships to work long oars, not for propulsion but only to keep us pointed downstream. Morning full of Lewis’s woodpeckers, another species Corps of Discovery brought into American ornithology; in all my travels, never saw this bird before—now a couple every mile. Eastward high cliffs of sedimentary rock; on west sky-shredding metamorphic rises; stones close to river covered with yellow lichens like mirrors reflecting sun. Motorless, we can talk where rapids don’t drown us out, hear birdsong and rattle of cottonwoods. Too easy to be real travel. BB: “Count on it to change.” Indeed: soon after, blue sky dies and turns black as if decaying, wind cracks down hard, brings sheet rain, and we scramble ashore forhalf shelter of tall outlier called Tower Rock. Half hour later proceed on; to starboard is U.S. 93, one of the loneliest federal highways in America, but not here with houses and more going up; goodbye old valley; at last, relief of hay meadows; along banks magpies flit and natter in serviceberries. Average annual rainfall about eight inches, virtual desert we’re floating through. Pass big cottonwoods holding heronry of 150 nests, gawky birds gawking as do we; one lets fly squirt of excreta that could sink canoe. Nature’s opinion of us. Valley narrows to limit human works; on hills beyond grow shrubby and twisted mountain mahogany, wood so heavy it won’t float. P[ilotis]: “Widely used in the early days for Salmon River submarines—if only the water had been more than six feet deep.” Arrive North Fork late afternoon; will enter Wild and Scenic section tomorrow. Compared to past ones, day so uneventful feel I’ve been on Sunday outing, not transcontinentaling. P: “Why do you think our passage must be continual travail? You’ve got to adjust to going downhill. Quit uprivering. Just follow the drainage down.”

WEDNESDAY, DAY TWO

Adage here: “The river peaks when the roses bloom.” Someone tell it: Petals are dropping. I ask BB how far unsteered raft might go in this water: “One got loose a few weeks ago and traveled fourteen miles before it got hung up. An untended boat can do embarrassingly well.” Especially if not loaded down. At ten
A.M.
we make big turn west; each mile now deeper into wilderness. Pacific, here we come. Gravel road along bankside stops on below after forty-six miles; I wished it ended sooner; P: “Sure of that?” Escaped European plants, common tansy and knotweed, creeping into canyon, making problems for natives; another metaphor. Tansy, strange tansy: its oils can promote menstruation, but tea from steeped leaves can help prevent miscarriage (Make sure Doc gets it straight). Beautiful spread of virgin’s bower draping over banks, and actually forming bower; also called traveler’s joy, don’t know why; Indians chewed peppery stems to ease sore throats and crushed roots to place in nostrils of horses to invigorate them. Long pool named Deadwater requires oaring through; slow passage makes P groggy—needs a snootful of traveler’s joy. Photog[rapher] apprehensive about big rapids ahead. Relax, I say, a river can smell fear. Dump Creek Rapids mild, tune-up for what’s coming. BB points out logjam in sidewater where canoeist drowned last week. Cliffsslowly closing in and forested where not purely rock or too steep; creeks entering every couple of miles. Only beauty keeps canyon from being forbidding. Try lunch stop but mosquitoes drive us on; eat in raft: homemade antelope and elk jerky and fresh grapes—excellent. See occasional derelict gold diggings, but most signs of humanity are CCC projects from thirties: pack bridges, narrow road, campsites. Pass below high vantage where Wm. Clark looked westward and knew the Salmon was not Northwest Passage, but for us this dark jagged, ragged, snaggled, scraggled, cragged, and haggard gorge is a NW Passage. What were Clark’s words?
[“Those rapids which I had Seen (the Indian guide) said was Small & trifleing in comparrison to the rocks & rapids below at no great distance & The Hills or mountains were not like those I had Seen but like the Side of a tree Streight up.”]

Above us grave of H. C. Merritt who drowned in 1884 while passenger in supply scow. Stop to walk at Shoup, once gold-rush village, now only couple of buildings remain; place heavily salvaged in 1941 for armament metal; gold to guns. BB says last hand-crank phone system in U.S. here until recently. On again, deeper into narrows, on beyond Clipper Bullion Mine, richest around: sixty-five million tons of mountain torn out for thirteen pounds of gold, about enough to decorate neck of NFL wide receiver. Ever darker, more serrated cliffs of metamorphic gneiss, their age spectacular billion and half years although canyon only (!) about forty million years
.