Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge

A Valley Shaped Over Time

"Glacial Lake Missoula...at its maximum during the last ice age, the lake level reached an elevation of about 4350 feet. The water was then at least 2000 feet deep at the ice dam, and the volume of the lake was about 500 cubic miles-comparable to that of modern Lake Ontario" from Roadside Geology of Montana.

Hydrogeomorphic Changes

The ice age glaciers retreated thousands of years ago. And yet the snow melt, precipitation and the Bitterroot River drainage mimic (on a much smaller scale) the more ancient processes (hydrogeomorphology) that Glacial Lake Missoula had on the Bitterroot Valley. The following is taken from the Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan; the references are here.

The Bitterroot River stretch at the Lee Metcalf Refuge lies near the geomorphic threshold between a highly braided river channel pattern from Hamilton to Stevensville and a straight or sinuous channel pattern immediately downstream. Consequently, the river channel pattern for the area is changing and highly sensitive to perturbation (for example, inputs of sediment, changes to shading or discharge). The combination of irrigation development and land use changes, mainly in the 1900s, significantly altered hydrology and river channel morphology and movement in the Bitterroot Valley and its floodplains and facilitated degradation and loss of wetlands in this ecosystem. The extensive irrigation network of the Bitterroot Irrigation District led to construction of reservoirs, ditches, water diversion structures, and modified natural drainage routes. Stream channel networks, common in the Bitterroot Valley near the refuge, were altered by culvert and bridge crossings, railroad levees and beds, and extensive channelization of tributaries. Many stream channels, including sections of the Bitterroot River, were lined with riprap rock and car bodies to slow stream migration and in-channel bank erosion. In addition to local physical disruptions to topography and hydraulics, the entire fluvial system of the Bitterroot River has been altered by historical land use changes. The valleys and lower hill slopes have been grazed and farmed, while the upper valleys and mountains have been partly deforested. Overgrazing was common on many valley terraces and, when coupled with deforestation in neighboring mountains and slope areas, led to erosion and increased sediment loading in the Bitterroot River. Subsequently, extensive sedimentation has occurred in drainages and floodplain depressions on the Refuge.

The channel morphology and discharge of the Bitterroot River has also been affected by land and water use in the valley. From 1936 to 1972, the Bitterroot River underwent significant adjustments in sinuosity and braided character causing a nearly 4-percent reduction in channel length between Darby and Missoula. Other data suggest that in the last decade, increased instability, channel migration, and overall widening of the river’s braided area from Hamilton to Stevensville has occurred compared to other reaches of the Bitterroot River both above and below. This instability has caused rapid erosion of riverbanks on the refuge and increased physical dynamics of sediment and waterflow that facilitate rapid lateral channel migration across the refuge floodplain. In contrast to the highly active river migration physics from Hamilton to Stevensville, substantial narrowing of the Bitterroot River occurred near Stevensville and the refuge lands after 1937 in part because of artificial control structures. Part of the river has been channelized immediately upstream of riprap bank stabilization structures near the railroad embankment on the refuge. This artificial narrowing of the Bitterroot River to control river migration and bank erosion has actually heightened river migration tendencies immediately upstream of structures and has the potential to carve new channels across the refuge floodplain.

Aerial photograph maps of a 2.5-mile stretch of the Bitterroot River on the north end of the refuge from 1937 to 2009 show the highly unstable channel location of the river. Three key points of river migration are apparent through the time-series of photographs, and typical movements of the outer riverbanks average about 8 feet per year. During more active periods of river channel bank migration, the rate of erosion is greater than 32 feet per year. The 1955 photograph reveals that the river migrated significantly to the south and was deemed a threat to the existing railroad bed and trestle. Subsequently, actions were taken by the railroad company to stop river migration by placing car bodies along the riverbank to act as riprap and cut off the river, which created an oxbow that is still present. The most active area of river migration in 2009–2010 is at point C. Between 2004 and 2009, the river migrated about 197 feet east, or about 39 feet per year. If this rate of river migration continues, then the river may reach the refuge’s main road in about 15 years and effectively remove about 10.5 acres of current floodplain land.

The Bitterroot River Irrigation District’s Main Supply Canal continues to transport water to most of the eastern benches in the Bitterroot Valley, including those next to the refuge. This canal facilitates a net transfer of about 75,000 acre-feet per year of water from the west side of the valley to the eastern benches and terraces. During summer, irrigation withdrawals significantly reduce flow in the Bitterroot River and some of its tributaries. Part of the diverted flow eventually drains back into the river system; this irrigation return flow is about 280,000 acre-feet per year in normal precipitation years. This includes well water and other canals used for irrigation. Average discharge of the Bitterroot River near Florence is 1,540,000 acre-feet per year, and at this point there is about a 13 percent current loss of discharge from irrigation use, other consumptive uses, and evapotranspiration. More than 10,000 wells are now in the valley, and the extraction of water from these wells, coupled with irrigation diversion, may be affecting ground water levels, recharge to floodplain wetlands, ground and surface water quality, and the connections of branches (anastomosis) of the Bitterroot River.

People of the Bitterroot Valley

The respect and love for the Bitterroot can be summed up in the words of Louise Vanderburg, a Salish elder: “When we go home I think about our old people. I walk lightly when I walk around. The bones of my Grandparents and their Grandparents are all around here. We return to the Bitterroot each year on a Pilgrimage to honor our connection with our homeland. Also to ensure the preservation of our ancestors’ graves and sacred sites. In doing so we acknowledge the gifts left here by those who have gone on before us, gifts of language, songs, dance, spirituality. This way of life has been sustained for generations by our ancestors’ prayers.”

Overview of Prehistoric Occupation

The cultural sequence for prehistoric occupation in this area is split into three major subdivisions based on Malouf (1956) including Early Hunter (10,000 to 6,000 before Christ [B.C.]), Middle Period (6,000 B.C. to Anno Domini [A.D.] 800), and Late Hunter (A.D. 800 to 1870). 

Early Hunter

Woodside (2008) examined oral histories and other documentation to propose the presence of Paleo-Indians in Oregon and Washington prior to the flooding of Glacial Lake Missoula. Paleo-Indians, or Paleoamericans, is a classification term given to the first peoples who entered, and subsequently inhabited, the North American continent during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period. Woodside examined the Native American oral history of tribes in Oregon and Washington that described the cataclysmic flooding of Glacial Lake Missoula and how the tribes survived this event, dating about 15,000 years ago. Her research did cover other areas impacted by Glacial Lake Missoula, including the refuge. Ryan (1977) recovered two Cascade Points (projectiles) while performing archaeological research along the Clark Fork River west of Missoula. These points are indicative of this period and definitive evidence of Paleo-Indian presence. Ryan hypothesized that the Clark Fork Valley was an important corridor connecting the Columbian Plateau and the Northern Plains. Ryan also found an abundance of sites containing prehistoric activity. Alternately, Ward (1973) found a small number of archaeological sites in the Bitterroot Valley; many were pictographs only and not considered evidence of this period, nor did they date to this period of time.

Middle Period

Glacial Lake Missoula receded about 12,000 B.P. Eventually native people occupied the new valleys formed by this event. Ward (1973) searched the Bitterroot Valley for middle prehistoric evidence of occupation. She found 19 sites no older than 5,000 B.P. None contained the traditional pottery, roasting pits, tipi rings, battle pits, rock piles, or fishing gear associated with this time period. Many had pictographs, which connect site occupation to the middle period. Ward refers to other work including that done in 1951 by Carling Malouf and his University of Montana archaeology class who found jasper and flint chips at the mouth of the North Burnt Fork Creek (a small occupation site on the Refuge) (Malouf 1952).

Late Hunter

Malouf (1952) notes that in A.D. 1730 the Shoshoni of Idaho gave horses to the Salish of this area. This significantly changed the culture of the Salish people. Malouf stated that the Salish have occupied western Montana for several centuries dating back at least A.D. 1700. He cites tribal myths of animals that occupied this area, specifically coyote, beaver, otter, jay, and owl. 

Protohistoric and Early Native Americans

The protohistoric period is the period of time between the arrival of horses and manufactured goods but before the arrival of Euro-American traders and explorers. This time period lasted only about 70 years due to the arrival of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805. Malouf (1952) noted that these intermountain areas of western Montana were the last areas of the United States to be settled by whites. Many traits of aboriginal times survived through this period without influence from Euro-American culture. When early Euro-American explorers arrived, the area of western Montana was occupied primarily by three tribal groups: Bitterroot Salish and Pend d’Oreille and the Kutenai. In 1855, Governor Isaac Stevens stated the tribal population in western Montana to be 2,750. 

In an unpublished University of Montana paper, Malouf (1952) reconstructed economy and land use by these tribes in western Montana using ethnographical and historical data. All tribes were hunters and gatherers, and as such they did not allow for the accumulation of surplus food and supplies. However, famines were rare. Approximately 28 species of plants were the main sources of foods, medicines, cookware, and housing. The root of the bitterroot plant was a central dietary feature. One of the best places to dig the root was a mere 3 miles north of the refuge boundary at the mouth of Eight Mile Creek. Families could dig 50–70 pounds of bitter-root in late March or April. Arrowleaf balsamroot, an abundant plant in most elevations of western Montana, was also extensively eaten. Stems were typically peeled and eaten raw before flowering, and later roots were harvested and cooked. Ponderosa pine provided four forms of food: inner bark, sap between woody layers, cone nuts, and moss hanging from branches. Narrow leaf willow, a pioneer species on river gravel bars, was used in the construction of sweat lodges and baskets for cooking (sealed with gum). Most of the common mammals present today in western Montana were hunted including white-tailed deer and mule deer.  

References and further extensive historical, cultural treatments:

• Alt, D.B. 2001. Glacial Lake Missoula and its humongous floods. Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 208 p.
• Cappious, S.L. 1939. A history of the Bitter Root Valley to 1914 [master’s thesis]. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. [Pages unknown].
• Clary, J.; Hastings, P.B.; O’Neill, J.; Winthrop, R. 2005. First roots: the story of Stevensville, Montana’s oldest community. Stevensville, MT: Stoneydale Press Publishing Company. 251 p.
• Malouf, Carling I. 1952. Economy and land use by the Indians of western Montana, U.S.A. [Unpublished]. Missoula, MT: University of Montana. 63 p.
• Popham, C. 1998. Early days in sagebrush sagebrush
  The western United States’ sagebrush country encompasses over 175 million acres of public and private lands. The sagebrush landscape provides many benefits to our rural economies and communities, and it serves as crucial habitat for a diversity of wildlife, including the iconic greater sage-grouse and over 350 other species.
  
  Learn more about sagebrush country. Missoula, MT: Pictoral Histories Publishing Company. 130 p.
• Ryan, Michael Jerome. 1977. An archaeological survey of the middle Clark Fork River valley: Missoula to Superior, Montana [master’s thesis]. Missoula, MT: University of Montana. [Pages unknown].
• Some Bitterroot memories, 1860-1930 : a homey account of the Florence Community, 68 p. illus., Missoula, Mont. Published by Gateway Printing, [n.d.]
• Stevensville Historical Society. 1971. Montana genesis. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing Company. 289 p.
• Ward, Linda. 1973. Prehistory of the Bitterroot Valley [master’s thesis]. Missoula, MT: University of Montana. [Pages unknown].
• Woodside, Gail J. 2008. Comparing native oral history and scientific research to produce historical evidence of native occupation during and after the Missoula floods [senior thesis]. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University. <http://hdl.handle.net/1957/8746&gt; accessed September 27, 2010.

History and Culture of the Bitterroot Valley

 "In 1864 the pioneers found the Bitterroot Valley a desolate place. There was no irrigation, and since the grasshoppers had visited the country that summer there were no signs of vegetation. Buffalo grass and wild sage covered the ground. There were no roads, railroads, bridges, telephones, or telegraph." Taken from the Missoulian newspaper "When Pioneers First came to the Bitter Root Valley" by the publication "Some Bitterroot Memories 1860-1930".

The Bitterroot Valley was used by the first Euro-American explorers to the western United States, including Lewis and Clark. Following the Lewis and Clark expedition, fur traders from the Hudson’s Bay Company entered the Bitterroot Valley to secure furs from the Indians and establish forts and missions. The oldest consistently occupied town in Montana was initially established at the present day site of Stevensville by Catholic missionaries in 1841 (Stevensville Historical Society 1971). At the request of four separate Indian delegations from the Salish tribe, Father Pierre De Smet came to the valley from St. Louis in the late 1830s. De Smet and other priests were eventually joined by Father Anthony Ravalli in 1845. Named St. Mary’s Mission, this community kindled additional settlement in the region. St. Mary’s Mission was closed in 1850, and the community was renamed Fort Owen, and then later Stevensville, after Isaac Stevens, the first Governor of the Montana territory.

The vicinity of Stevensville was the center of social and economic life for the Salish. Most tributaries in the Bitterroot Valley had one or more families inhabiting it. The alluvial fan at the mouth of North Burnt Fork Creek (partially on refuge property) was also home for a considerable number of Salish families. JoAnn BigCrane, a Native American historian, visited this part of the refuge in August 1990 (refuge annual narrative) and agreed that a seasonal encampment was here at one time. North Burnt Fork Creek doubled as a highway of sorts for Native American travel to the Clark Fork Valley over the Sapphire/Rock Creek divide. This was the shortest route requiring only one night of camping.

Malouf (1952) noted that the intermountain areas of western Montana were the last areas of the United States to be settled by whites. Many traits of aboriginal times survived through this period without influence from Euro-American culture.

After the Hellgate Treaty of 1855, pressure increased for the removal of the Salish from the Bitterroot to the Jocko Valley on the Flathead Reservation. In 1872, General James Garfield presented the three Salish Chiefs Charlo, Arlee, and Adolf, with a second treaty which Charlo refused to sign. Charlo remained in the Bitterroot for 20 more years until he and his band were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands by General Carrington in October 1891.

Extensive historical, cultural treatments outside of this webpage are found in these publications:

• Cappious, S.L. 1939. A history of the Bitter Root Valley to 1914 [master’s thesis]. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. [Pages unknown].
• Clary, J.; Hastings, P.B.; O’Neill, J.; Winthrop, R. 2005. First roots: the story of Stevensville, Montana’s oldest community. Stevensville, MT: Stoneydale Press Publishing Company. 251 p.
• Malouf, Carling I. 1952. Economy and land use by the Indians of western Montana, U.S.A. [Unpublished]. Missoula, MT: University of Montana. 63 p.
• Popham, C. 1998. Early days in sagebrush country. Missoula, MT: Pictoral Histories Publishing Company. 130 p.
• Some Bitterroot memories, 1860-1930 : a homey account of the Florence Community, 68 p. illus., Missoula, Mont. Published by Gateway Printing, [n.d.]
• Stevensville Historical Society. 1971. Montana genesis. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing Company. 289 p.
• Ward, Linda. 1973. Prehistory of the Bitterroot Valley [master’s thesis]. Missoula, MT: University of Montana. [Pages unknown].
• Woodside, Gail J. 2008. Comparing native oral history and scientific research to produce historical evidence of native occupation during and after the Missoula floods [senior thesis]. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University. <http://hdl.handle.net/1957/8746&gt; accessed September 27, 2010.

Changing the Land

"We have attempted to mold the land to our ideas, to what it should produce, when the land should have shaped our ideas and dictated to us what it could best produce." Harold Hagen, last occupant and owner of the Whaley Homestead

The Bitterroot Mountain range is the backbone of the valley. The Salish call the Bitterroot Mountains “VCk Welk Welqey” which means “the tops are red.” The life way of the Salish people is a cooperative dependent relationship with the land, plants, and animals.

Salish is the name of a group of people, consisting of several tribes, and the language they spoke. The Bitterroot Valley was the permanent home of their forefathers. The Stevensville vicinity was their main winter camp.

In an unpublished University of Montana paper, Malouf (1952) reconstructed economy and land use by the tribes in western Montana using ethnographical and historical data. All tribes were hunters and gatherers, and as such they did not allow for the accumulation of surplus food and supplies; however, famines were rare. Approximately 28 species of plants were the main sources of foods, medicines, cookware, and housing. The root of the bitterroot plant was a central dietary feature. One of the best places to dig the root was a mere 3 miles north of the Refuge boundary at the mouth of Eight Mile Creek. Families could dig 50–70 pounds of bitterroot in late March or April. Arrowleaf balsamroot, an abundant plant in most elevations of western Montana, was also extensively eaten. Stems were typically peeled and eaten raw before flowering, and later roots were harvested and cooked. Ponderosa pine provided four forms of food: inner bark, sap between woody layers, cone nuts, and moss hanging from branches. Narrow leaf willow, a pioneer species on river gravel bars, was used in the construction of sweat lodges and baskets for cooking (sealed with gum). Most of the common mammals present today in western Montana were hunted including white-tailed deer and mule deer.

The primary early land use by settlers in the Bitterroot Valley was cattle grazing. By 1841 extensive areas of the valley were grazed and used for winter range as cattle were moved from summer grazing and calving locations in mountain slopes and foothills back into the valley in the fall. In the mid-1850s, the discovery of gold in western Montana fueled immigration to the State, and a short flurry of gold exploration and mining occurred in the Bitterroot Valley. Early workers in the gold camps subsisted on wild meat and the importation of produce, meat, and dairy products. At this time some residents began growing vegetable crops to feed the miners, and this demand stimulated the first agricultural development in the Bitterroot Valley. Subsequently, the Bitterroot Valley became the “breadbasket” that nourished Montana’s genesis, and Fort Owen was the nucleus of the first Euro-American settlement. Gold exploration was short-lived in the Bitterroot region, and by the 1870s the area’s economy was almost solely based on local agricultural crops and cattle production. Ravalli County was created in 1893, and by 1914 extensive settlement had occurred in the region. Timber harvest and grazing were the predominant economic uses of the area at that time.

The dry climate of the Bitterroot Valley created annual variation in the availability of water to support agricultural crops. As early as 1842, priests at St. Mary’s Mission successfully planted and irrigated crops of wheat, potatoes, and oats, and thus by appropriation, the first water right in Montana was established. A water right on the North Burnt Fork Creek was filed in 1852 by Major John Owen, who used creek water to run a grist mill and sawmill. Water use history here.

The Homestead Act, passed on May 20, 1862, hastened the settlement of lasting, legal communities in the western territories by granting 160 acres of surveyed public land to any adult U.S. citizen or intended citizen. Peter Whaley took advantage of this law and claimed 160 acres in 1877 and completed his two-story house in 1885 that is now Refuge. A national overview of the homestead period was done by National Archives and Records.

Most of the Bitterroot Valley was unfenced in the early era of settlement from 1850 to 1910. However, in the early 1900s, the “apple boomers” who bought land in the valley began fencing most of the area. By the mid-1930s, more than 50,000 sheep and 30,000 cattle were present in the Bitterroot Valley; only about 22 percent of the valley was harvested cropland. In the late 1940s and early 1950s generally wet conditions stimulated agricultural production in the Bitterroot Valley. Large-scale cattle grazing and haying operations and some small grain farming were conducted in and near the Lee Metcalf Refuge. Some native riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian forest and grassland in the Lee Metcalf Refuge region had been cut, cleared, and/or converted to alternate land uses by the mid-1900s. Two of the larger minor floodplain channels, Nickerson and McPherson Creeks (now called Ditches), were partly ditched in the early 1900s, and some minor impoundment of low elevation depressions and drainages occurred. By the 1960s, lands that became part of the refuge were controlled by about 13 landowners who heavily cropped and grazed the area. Much of the Refuge was irrigated crop and pastureland using the extensive ditch and irrigation diversion system constructed across the floodplain. These impounded ponds probably were created as water sources for livestock.

By the late 1970s, farm sizes in the Bitterroot Valley increased greatly, but agricultural economies prevented more extensive small grain farming in the valley and landowners began subdividing holdings for residential development. By the early 1990s, Ravalli County had the fastest growing population and residential expansion in Montana, expanding from about 25,000 residents in 1990 to more than 40,000 in 2010. Today, most Ravalli County residents live on the Bitterroot Valley floor within a few miles of the river. Much of the increase in population occurred outside of established towns and became concentrated in areas where each dwelling or subdivision has its own well and septic system. Several hundred residential structures now essentially surround the Refuge.