The confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers was an important geographic point passed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the fall of 1805. The Snake appeared on William Clark’s resulting map as Lewis’s River. The native Nez Perce called the Snake Kimooenim, meaning “the stream/place of the hemp weed,” and they termed the stretch upstream from the confluence with the Clearwater River, Pikúunen. The Clearwater was referred to as Koos-Koos-Kia, meaning “clear water,” and they called the confluence itself Tsceminicum, or “meeting of the waters.” French fur traders later gave the main waterway the name “Snake” when they […]
With the Bicentennial of Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery on the horizon, cultural leaders throughout the Columbia Basin contemplated separate public art projects in their various locations. Starting in the year 1999, a gradual consensus formed to work together to create a unified series of artistic installations that would tell a compelling story. The Confluence Project was born. The artist Maya Lin, creator of the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC and the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama among other works, was foremost in the minds of the leaders and over a period of time […]
The Lewis & Clark Expedition disproved the existence of an easy, river-based Northwest Passage through the middle latitudes of North America. In the decades to follow, the Oregon Trail, the Pony Express, and various stagecoach routes allowed for difficult, dangerous, and time consuming travel by land across the continent. Not until after the Civil War was safe, reliable, quick, and relatively inexpensive transcontinental travel available in the form of railroads. The first route through the central part of the country ran well south of the northern area near the Canadian border. Once the final spike was hammered down in the […]