Borders
21/11/22 03:18
If you know where to leave the Interstate Highway south of Dillon Montana, you find yourself on a dirt and gravel road heading west. There are a few markers that indicate the direction to Lemhi Pass. It is a one land road with pullouts for traffic to pass, but the time we drove over the pass, there wasn’t any traffic to worry about. The road is marked as unsuitable for large vehicles or trailers, but our small tent trailer didn’t pose a problem. I had earlier modified the suspension of the trailer to provide more ground clearance and the use of larger tires. If you follow the road, it takes you to the pass that is the Montana-Idaho border and down from there to a paved highway. Heading north on the highway you will arrive in Salmon, where having wound your way around a mountain, you can go south towards Challis. It is country I’ve written about before in my journal.
The actually pass at Lemhi has quite a bit of historical significance. One of the largest challenges faced by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, known also as the Corps of Discovery, was finding a way across the continental divide. They had been sent to discover the source of the Missouri River. There were some people who believed that there was an easy connection between the Missouri watershed and the waters of the Columbia, which flow into the Pacific. However, what really exists is a maze of mountains that provide a significant physical barrier and stretch for miles between the two sides of the divide. There are multiple passes that must be crossed. If you follow the modern route, Interstate 90, once you have crossed the continental divide near Butte, there are two more major passes that must be crossed before you get to the waters of the Columbia.
Lewis and Clark, however, did not realize that they had already crossed the continental divide or that their route would require them to cross over and back multiple times. It isn’t a clearly defined physical feature in many places. On August 9, 1805, Lewis took a small scouting party south from the current location of the main party. They were looking for a pass through the mountains that would lead them to the Columbia. They also wanted to make contact with Shoshone people so that they could acquire horses. On August 12, Lewis crossed the pass. There is a marker where he stood, but the spot would be easy to discern even without the marker. It is a clearly defined ridge that is the current border between Montana and Idaho. I’ve stood on the spot and looked north and south at the divide and east and west into two clearly defined areas. Lewis wrote in his journal:
“two miles below McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri. after refreshing ourselves we proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immence ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow. I now decended the mountain about ¾ of a mile which I found much steeper than on the opposite side, to a handsome bold running Creek of cold Clear water. here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia river.”
Following contact with Shoshone and acquiring horses, the full expedition crossed the Lemhi pass on August 26. It proved to be the wrong route for the expedition as they discovered that the narrow canyon of the Salmon River did not provide a clear passage way west. The party was forced to retreat back over the pass and eventually found their route closer to Lolo Pass the the route across northern Idaho taken by modern highways.
When I think of borders, I often think of Lemhi Pass. When the Corps of Discovery crossed the pass, they were leaving United-States controlled territory. They were exiting the country. They were also crossing the continental divide and leaving the Missouri River watershed. If you stand at the top of the pass, there is no question in your mind where the pass lies. It looks like a pass. You can clearly identify it as a border. You know where Montana ends and Idaho begins.
I don’t know, however, if i have ever found borders as clearly defined by physical features as is the case at Lemhi Pass. Most borders are like the one just north of where I now live. The boundary between Canada and the United States at Blaine doesn’t have any discernible physical features other than the border crossing stations built by the two countries on the roads that connect the two countries. In town, you can picnic, play and walk from Blaine, Washington, to Surrey, British Columbia, without knowing the exact line in the middle of a park. An archway has been erected to show the location of the border, but there is no line that shows the exact location of the 49th Parallel. A few decades after Lewis and Clark led the Corps of Discovery on their trip to the west coast and back, a treaty between the United States and Britain established the 49th Parallel as the border between the two countries.
For families who live near the border and have members on both sides of the line, it didn’t seemed like much of a barrier until the border was closed during the Covid Pandemic. They were used to crossing the border frequently. There is a school bus route in the Blaine district, where children leave their homes at Point Roberts, cross into Canada, then cross back into the United States to reach their school. They make the return trip after school. That is four border crossings every school day. It is no big deal to them.
There is a difference between borders that are set by politics or history and those that exist by the physical properties of the planet. As the world faces mass migrations caused by climate change millions - or even billions - of people will need to move and they will cross borders. Fences and barricades will be insufficient to prevent the movement of so many people. I suspect that humanity will think differently about borders in decades to come.
I don’t, however, expect there to ever be much traffic over the Lemhi Pass.
The actually pass at Lemhi has quite a bit of historical significance. One of the largest challenges faced by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, known also as the Corps of Discovery, was finding a way across the continental divide. They had been sent to discover the source of the Missouri River. There were some people who believed that there was an easy connection between the Missouri watershed and the waters of the Columbia, which flow into the Pacific. However, what really exists is a maze of mountains that provide a significant physical barrier and stretch for miles between the two sides of the divide. There are multiple passes that must be crossed. If you follow the modern route, Interstate 90, once you have crossed the continental divide near Butte, there are two more major passes that must be crossed before you get to the waters of the Columbia.
Lewis and Clark, however, did not realize that they had already crossed the continental divide or that their route would require them to cross over and back multiple times. It isn’t a clearly defined physical feature in many places. On August 9, 1805, Lewis took a small scouting party south from the current location of the main party. They were looking for a pass through the mountains that would lead them to the Columbia. They also wanted to make contact with Shoshone people so that they could acquire horses. On August 12, Lewis crossed the pass. There is a marker where he stood, but the spot would be easy to discern even without the marker. It is a clearly defined ridge that is the current border between Montana and Idaho. I’ve stood on the spot and looked north and south at the divide and east and west into two clearly defined areas. Lewis wrote in his journal:
“two miles below McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri. after refreshing ourselves we proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immence ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow. I now decended the mountain about ¾ of a mile which I found much steeper than on the opposite side, to a handsome bold running Creek of cold Clear water. here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia river.”
Following contact with Shoshone and acquiring horses, the full expedition crossed the Lemhi pass on August 26. It proved to be the wrong route for the expedition as they discovered that the narrow canyon of the Salmon River did not provide a clear passage way west. The party was forced to retreat back over the pass and eventually found their route closer to Lolo Pass the the route across northern Idaho taken by modern highways.
When I think of borders, I often think of Lemhi Pass. When the Corps of Discovery crossed the pass, they were leaving United-States controlled territory. They were exiting the country. They were also crossing the continental divide and leaving the Missouri River watershed. If you stand at the top of the pass, there is no question in your mind where the pass lies. It looks like a pass. You can clearly identify it as a border. You know where Montana ends and Idaho begins.
I don’t know, however, if i have ever found borders as clearly defined by physical features as is the case at Lemhi Pass. Most borders are like the one just north of where I now live. The boundary between Canada and the United States at Blaine doesn’t have any discernible physical features other than the border crossing stations built by the two countries on the roads that connect the two countries. In town, you can picnic, play and walk from Blaine, Washington, to Surrey, British Columbia, without knowing the exact line in the middle of a park. An archway has been erected to show the location of the border, but there is no line that shows the exact location of the 49th Parallel. A few decades after Lewis and Clark led the Corps of Discovery on their trip to the west coast and back, a treaty between the United States and Britain established the 49th Parallel as the border between the two countries.
For families who live near the border and have members on both sides of the line, it didn’t seemed like much of a barrier until the border was closed during the Covid Pandemic. They were used to crossing the border frequently. There is a school bus route in the Blaine district, where children leave their homes at Point Roberts, cross into Canada, then cross back into the United States to reach their school. They make the return trip after school. That is four border crossings every school day. It is no big deal to them.
There is a difference between borders that are set by politics or history and those that exist by the physical properties of the planet. As the world faces mass migrations caused by climate change millions - or even billions - of people will need to move and they will cross borders. Fences and barricades will be insufficient to prevent the movement of so many people. I suspect that humanity will think differently about borders in decades to come.
I don’t, however, expect there to ever be much traffic over the Lemhi Pass.
