The Lemhi Shoshone lived in the Salmon River country of present-day central Idaho, a resource-rich but geographically isolated region. They possessed many horses but few guns, making them vulnerable to raids by the better-armed Blackfeet and Hidatsa.

The band’s decision to trade horses to the expedition — influenced heavily by Sacagawea’s reunion with her brother Cameahwait — was one of the most consequential moments of the journey. Without Shoshone horses, the expedition could not have crossed the Rocky Mountains.

The Lemhi Shoshone were later removed from their ancestral lands and placed on the Fort Hall Reservation in southeastern Idaho in 1907 — a removal they have contested ever since.

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“Our present camp is precisely on the spot that the Snake Indians were encamped at the time the Minnetares of the Knife river first came in sight of them five years since.”

The three forks were named Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin after the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury. The expedition followed the Jefferson fork, the westernmost branch, as they searched for the Shoshone people and the horses they desperately needed to cross the mountains.

Sacagawea’s recognition of the landscape confirmed the expedition was nearing Shoshone territory and increased hopes of making contact soon.

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“She instantly jumped up, and ran and embraced him, throwing over him her blanket, and weeping profusely.”

This reunion had enormous practical consequences. Cameahwait agreed to provide the horses the expedition needed to cross the Bitterroot Mountains — a transaction that might never have occurred without the personal bond between Sacagawea and her brother.

Lewis named the camp where these negotiations took place “Camp Fortunate” — recognizing how lucky they were that the first Shoshone band they encountered was led by Sacagawea’s own brother.

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“A Mr. Chaubonee interpreter for the Gross Ventre nation came to See us, and informed that he came Down with Several Indians from a Hunting expedition up the river.”

Sacagawea had been captured by a Hidatsa raiding party as a young girl and brought to the Mandan villages, where Charbonneau won her (or purchased her) in a gambling game. The captains recognized that a Shoshone speaker would be invaluable when they reached the Rocky Mountains and needed to obtain horses.

This seemingly routine personnel decision would prove to be one of the most consequential of the entire expedition.

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