Salmon Festival

The hosts were the Newe, the Northern Shoshone, the "Shoshoni" of the sign, and the fair met where the Boise, Owyhee, Malheur, Payette and Weiser all reach the Snake. Cayuse and Umatilla traders carried in seashells from the Pacific coast. In 1819 Donald Mackenzie held a trappers' rendezvous in the Boise Valley, six years before the Rocky Mountain fur trade made the custom famous. The salmon were later shut out of the upper rivers; in 2015 they swam on the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes' Duck Valley Reservation for the first time since 1928.

What the plaque says

Salmon Festival Long before fur hunters explored here in 1811, an annual Indian salmon festival was held each July in this area. Indian peoples came great distances to trade, celebrate, and arrange intertribal marriages. Cheyenne and Arapaho bands brought elegant tipi poles from Colorado. Crow and Shoshoni buffalo hunters supplied meat and hides from Montana and Wyoming. Nez Perce and Walla Walla horsemen marketed superior stock they had developed, and Paiute weapon and tool makers provided obsidian from central Oregon. All were attracted to this river area for its excellent salmon fishing. Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Weiser — 18 mi
  Every June the fiddlers come to a farm town on the Snake, and the campground plays all night.

More markers nearby

• Snake River — steps away
• Francois Payette — 5.2 mi
• New Plymouth — 6.0 mi
• Marie Dorion — 15 mi