Nez Perce Trail

The board's Clark's River is the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, and the Nimiipuu got across it by a feint rather than a race. In early September 1877 Colonel Samuel Sturgis held the Seventh Cavalry near the mouth of the Clarks Fork canyon to catch them coming out of the mountains. Their herders milled horses toward the Stinking Water to the south, Sturgis read the trail as the route and moved off, and the column came down the narrow canyon past his empty camp. He caught them only at Canyon Creek on September 13.

What the plaque says

Nez Perce Trail In 1877, The Nez Perce Indians of Idaho, led by Chief Joseph, fled the U.S. Army. They crossed the Clark's River near this point, while trying to outrun the soldiers to Canada. Erected 1987 by Boy Scout Troop 53

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heart Mountain Interpretive Center — 18 mi
  The incarcerated cleared and watered the land; when the camp closed it went to veterans to homestead, and the barracks sold for a dollar each.
• Beartooth Highway — 18 mi
  A road over the top of the world, built because a coal town's mines closed and it needed tourists instead.
• Smith Mine — 19 mi
  Rusting buildings beside the highway, all that is left of the mine where Montana's worst coal disaster emptied a valley.

More markers nearby

• Dead Indian Hill Summit — 17 mi
• Belfry — 18 mi
• Bearcreek — 19 mi
• Black Gold — 19 mi