STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Tony Tekaroniake Evans shakes his head when he recalls reading a historical marker on Galena Summit that told of trapper Alexander Ross “discovering” the Stanley Basin in 1824.
Then he points to historical maps that depict trails that were long used by Native Americans from Redfish Lake to the Snake River Plain long before Ross arrived.
In particular, a very early map of Wood River Valley mining claims. It depicts an “old Indian trail” drawn across Trail Creek summit.
“Alexander Ross was following the trails they had been using for years. Native Americans had been here long before the Europeans came,” said Evans who family is descended from Mohawk Iroquois near Quebec, Canada.
Evans and the Blaine County Historical Museum recently released a glossy 58-page booklet “A History of Indians in the Sun Valley Area.” And Evans will launch the book during a free presentation at 6 tonight—Thursday, July 13—at Ketchum’s Community Library.
The stories are expanded versions of stories Evans did a few years ago for the Idaho Mountain Express. Proceeds from the book, which cost $14, will go to the Blaine County Historical Museum.
The book is available at the Blaine County Historical Museum in Hailey. It is also available at local bookstores, visitor’s centers in Hailey and Fairfield, Signatures gift shop in Sun Valley, Silver Creek Outfitters, F-Stop and Chateau Drug.
The book traces the story of Native Americans in the Wood River Valley from 12,000 years ago as they hunted, fished the valleys and mountains of this area. It includes the short but bloody Bannock War of 1878 sparked by pig farmers and cattlemen destroying the camas bulbs on the Camas Prairie and the monumental changes brought to Indians’ migratory culture by the mining era, which began in the 1860s.
It ends with the yearly migration of Indians from the Fort Hall Reservation make to the Camas Prairie each spring to celebrate their ancestors’ age-old practice of harvesting camas bulb for food.
It includes a touring map created by modern-day mapmaker Evelyn Phillips and a reproduction of an historical mining map from 1881.
Evans, who has lived in the valley for 30-some years, was able to talk with some people who recalled interacting with natives as they came through the Wood River Valley nearly a hundred years ago.
Among them: longtime Hailey resident Dorothy Ann Outzs, who recalled trading with Indians for deer skin gloves when they were camped at what is now Hop Porter Park in Hailey. Also, Ed Price, who told how Indians were exempt from toll charges on Trail Creek Road, prompting some white people to masquerade as Indians.
Mike Healy, who encouraged Evans to put together the book, said the two dozen pictures in the book help tell the story.
“I love the one of the summer tipi and the four or five from last year’s Camas Lily Days Festival. They are so colorful,” he said. “Tony’s favorite is of an Indian on a horse pulling a travois with a small child on top. They are part of the entertainment at a Sun Valley rodeo, probably in the 1950s.
“To me, the most dramatic picture is of a mine out East Fork in the 1880s. It is a huge operation with large buildings, teams of horses and lots of Anglo works. It’s a picture of the Industrial Revolution overwhelming a hunter-gatherer culture in a matter of decades.”
Healy said he enjoyed helping with the research, including that of learning about the saga of Al Severe, an Indian child who chose to live with homesteaders on the Camas Prairie because he didn’t like Indian ways or food. Severe led a somewhat lonely life because of his Indian heritage, spending his adult years in Carey. He is buried in the Carey cemetery where Carey residents decorate his grave every Memorial Day.
Healy said he also found interesting the introduction by Lionel Boyer, former chairman of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes at Fort Hall.
“It’s clear that the takeover over the land by settlers and miners is a vivid part of Native American history,” he said. “But it’s also clear that their culture is still vibrant and productive. My wife Irene and I recently went to the Camas Lily Days Festival in Fairfield where we met Lionel and enjoyed the dancing and games.”