A Path for Restoration at Bear River

The Bear River Massacre site is easy to miss—a stone monument in a dirt lot off Highway 91 just north of the Utah border in Preston, Idaho—not unlike the massacre itself, which is often overlooked. That’s why in 2018, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation bought 500 acres to reclaim possession of their ancestral lands. Their plans for restoring it—which include removing invasive species and replanting native ones—could have far-reaching positive impacts on the local environment.

The Bear River Massacre was the largest Native American massacre by the US Army in the country’s history. On a frigid morning on January 29, 1863, American troops descended on the band of Northwestern Shoshone that had been wintering near the natural hot springs along the river for centuries. The tribe knew an attack was possible but still thought there was a chance for peace talks and to reconcile, especially since most of the group consisted of women and children. Their hopes were devastated. Troops slaughtered as many as 500 individuals. Few of the band survived. Those who did fled and lost all claim to the land they called home.

That’s the way it stayed for centuries. Farmers and ranchers moved in. They cleared fields covered in native grasses for cattle to graze and rerouted the nearby river’s many fingers into one ditch—now called Battle Creek—to better suit irrigation. The invasive species they planted made excellent windbreaks and natural fences but siphoned water inefficiently, filled in wetlands, and changed the water table, all in the name of creating flatter, more grazing-appropriate land.