Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 51 www.blacktieskis.com | 406-995-3372 | bigsky@blacktieskis.com Aspen/Snowmass • Banff • BIG SKY/MOONLIGHT Boone, NC NEW! • Breckenridge/Keystone Crested Butte • Jackson Hole • Mammoth North Lake Tahoe • Park City/Deer Valley South Lake Tahoe • Steamboat • Telluride Vail • Whistler • Whitefish, MT NEW! • Winter Park NORTH AMERICA'S LARGEST SKI AND SNOWBOARD RENTAL DELIVERY SERVICE USE COUPON CODE DISTMT22 AND RECEIVE 20% OFF ALL SEASON LONG! N O R T H A M E R I C A' S L A R G E S T N O R T H A M E R I C A' S L A R G E S T IN-ROOM FITTING SLOPE-SIDE SERVICE COMPLIMENTARY RETURN passage. They reached Lolo Creek on the 9th and camped at a place Lewis called Travel- ler's Rest. They stayed there two nights before heading up the creek to Lolo Pass, passing by Lolo Hot Springs, and left Salish Country on the 13th. They emerged from those "most terrible mountains" two weeks later having barely sur- vived their ordeal. There, they met the Nez Perce on the Weippe Prairie above the Clearwater River, gathering camas—another friendly tribe that would again save their lives and their mission. These two events serve to underscore how the Corps' success and, indeed, their very lives depended on the goodwill and generosity of the friendly tribes they encountered along the way. Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole, Charles M. Russell, oil on canvas, 1912, 140" x 296" This gigantic painting hanging in the House of Representatives chamber of the Montana capitol depicts a fortuitous encounter between Thomas Jefferson's Corps of Discovery and the Salish Indians in the Sula Basin in the southwestern corner of Montana. The meeting, which occurred in September 1805, had enormous strategic importance as it enabled the expedition to secure the horses and directions needed to traverse the Bitterroot Mountains before winter snows would make travel impossible. As art historian Patricia M. Burnham observed, the mural "is grander than could have ever been anticipated... With a sweep of horses, Salish warriors, and tilted lances in the center foreground, Russell brought the action into the visual space of the assembly. By relegating Lewis and Clark to the quiet of the middle ground at right, Russell gives over the most important part of the picture space to Montana's original inhabitants. Nowhere else in the Capitol is the Indian presence in Montana so celebrated." Measuring approximately twelve feet high by twenty-five feet wide, the painting is the largest that Russell ever produced; its completion required that Russell raise the roof on his log cabin studio in order to accommodate it. – Montana Historical Society

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