Eeikish Pah and Return

• Main Author: West, Elliott
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 2009
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195136753.003.0018; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/51989667/isbn-9780195136753-book-part-18.pdf

Abstract Indian Territory wasn’t so bad, commissioner of Indian affairs E. A. Hayt wrote. The temperature there differed only slightly from that in Idaho. While maybe true according to an annual mean, on the basis of human experience the claim was astounding. The summer heat in what is today eastern Oklahoma is relentless, and the low altitude, about eight hundred feet, and high humidity keep the nights close and uncomfortable. For people acclimated to the high, dry air of the Wallowa valley and the Salmon River country, it must have seemed like living compressed in a warm, wet sponge. Winters, too, can be brutal there. Arctic fronts barrel down with snow, sleet, and freezing rain, and as on all the Great Plains, there is little to slow down the punch, certainly nothing like the mountain walls and protective canyons of the Nez Perces’ homeland.