The forest areas had been a summer Indian range for centuries before Lewis and Clark arrived. They continued that way for another few decades after these explorers had passed.

The Indian came annually to the meadows and woods, seeking that camas root, berries, fish, and game. He ate what he needed, and carried the rest away as provender for the winter. There is no problem in drying, for storage, the camas root, huckleberry, and flesh of the salmon. All these are nutritious relative to weight and bulk.

Most of all, it is probably the huckleberry that brought him to the forest. This, and his naturally nomadic nature. Camas root and abundant game could be found in the prairies and streams near his home. But the huckleberry was natural to higher country and wooded hills.

The huckleberry was a favorite food. It gave variety and flavor to his diet, and nothing the Indian had in his larder nourished him better.

Along the Potlatch today remains little visible evidence of the Indian's former presence. Arrowheads are occasionally found at an old camping ground on Pine Creek, some 4 or 5 miles south of Deary. Other than this, I believe that real signs of the encampment are scarce.

The forests and meadow grasses conceal the arrowheads and other artifacts quickly. The Indian frequented the meadows, but his camps were small and temporary. There were many places where he could put them. Little of this land has ever been systematically plowed or tilled to find what is there. An astute guess on location, combined with ambitious digging and sifting of dirt, could turn up objects of value.

On my father's farm near Bovill, I helped dig a basement. This was at Little Meadow in the year 1933. We found an artifact which I think is of interest because it is obviously very old. The stone was unquestionable worked to form a scraper or lancehead. I will call it a scraping tool. The material is uncommon in the area - a dark gray chalcedony, a flint-like rock, which works beautiful.

Dating is quite inexact, but the evidence of age is quite convincing. The piece was wedged in gravel and clay about three feet down, well below organic soils and the roots of the recently-logged mature forest. The age of the trees was about three centuries, and this has to be the minimum time since the passing of the Indian who dropped it.

More becomes apparent when the geologic side of things is examined. The clays and gravels lie in a small alluvial bench. They are part of an old gravel bar, or a deposit of outwash. Their location is well back from the river, 60 feet or more, and substantially away from an adjoining creek. Neither of these streams was active enough in the near past, either in erosion or deposition, to leave gravel deposits at this high level. Therefore, the deposits formed at an older time, when stream activity was much different.

They could have formed when the river bed was some 3 or 4 feet higher than now, before erosion had reduced the valley to its present depth. But were this so, the time would be very long indeed, possibly more than 100,000 years. Because of the scraping tool, the idea has to be doubted. Man's presence so long ago seems unlikely.

As an alternate explanation, they may have been formed by the outwash of a great flood. Such runoff suggests rain and snowfall greater than any recently known, and a possible change in climate. This requires a great deal of time - centuries, probably - but not too much time to be reconciled with both the Indian and the stone scraper.

Thirty thousand years ago, the North American Continent was still in the grip of the ice age. Ice did not reach the Bovill area (it barely reached the vicinity of Coeur d'Alene); yet snowfall in the area was doubtlessly heavy. Six thousand years ago the ice age was over; its grip broken. And yet, the climate was not and is not stabilized. Slow changes still go on.

A thousand years of time can very well account for heavy run-off, floods, and local gravels. Half of that is perhaps within reason. One or even ten thousand years seems possible. Sometime within that span of time, I think the scraping tool was lost or abandoned by passing hunters.