Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail
Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail
The floods shaped this land, and people have lived alongside it across a span of time deeper than any written record. The land the floodwaters carved — the coulees, the channeled scablands, the great river valleys — is the homeland of tribal nations who are here today, whose communities and cultures continue without interruption. What follows is offered with their voices, leading with recordings of tribal speakers describing this country in their own words. It is shared with the peoples of this region, not spoken for them.
Ancestral homelands, the boundaries of tribal nations today, and the extent of the largest flood. Toggle each layer.
Ancestral-homeland boundaries are from Native Land Digital (native-land.ca) — community-curated and not authoritative; they show relationship, not precise borders. Present-day boundaries are from the US Census Bureau.
A series of recordings in which tribal members speak to the floods, the water, and this country in their own words.
Accounts of catastrophic water appear in the oral traditions of this region. The passage below is reproduced from a published source, with its citation; it is presented as recorded, not retold.
“Now the water (flood) came up (rose). And some of the people, the large birds carried them (up) on their backs. They took them to a big mountain (Mary’s Peak). All those people went to that big mountain there. Now the water was coming up higher. All the country was filled with water. ... Now all the people were running along, they climbed up a big mountain. Now it was on that one very loftiest mountain, then all those people got (up) to there.”
Well-documented, fully citable flood passages tied to this specific region are scarce in openly available sources. For more, the Voices recordings above carry tribal speakers describing this country in their own words, and the nations’ own websites — linked in the section below — are the place to hear directly from the communities themselves.
The tribal nations whose ancestral and present-day homelands lie within the Ice Age Floods region. Each link leads to that nation’s own website.
Bitterroot Salish, Upper Pend d’Oreille, and Kootenai peoples; the Flathead/Clark Fork basin held Glacial Lake Missoula, source of the floods.
Visit the nation’s site →“Schitsu’umsh” means roughly “those who were found here”; homelands span Lake Coeur d’Alene and the upper flood path.
Visit the nation’s site →River people of the Pend Oreille, a corridor scoured by the floods.
Visit the nation’s site →Homelands along the Spokane River, a major flood drainage.
Visit the nation’s site →Twelve bands including Chelan, Methow, Okanogan, Nespelem, San Poil, Wenatchi, and others, across the flood-carved upper Columbia.
Visit the nation’s site →Fourteen confederated tribes and bands; homelands cover the Channeled Scablands and the Yakima Valley shaped by flood backwater.
Visit the nation’s site →Sahaptin-speaking community of the Priest Rapids area; “Wanapum” means “river people.” Not a federally recognized tribe — a distinct community closely tied to Grant PUD, which operates the Wanapum Heritage Center.
Wanapum Heritage Center at Grant PUD →“Nimíipuu” (“we, the people”) is the nation’s own name; homelands border the southeastern flood region along the Snake and Clearwater.
Visit the nation’s site →Union of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla peoples, downstream where flood waters surged through the Columbia Gorge.
Visit the nation’s site →Warm Springs, Wasco, and Northern Paiute peoples; the Deschutes joins the Columbia within the flood corridor.
Visit the nation’s site →Homelands along the lower Columbia, where flood waters spread wide before reaching the sea.
Visit the nation’s site →Unites more than 30 tribes and bands of western Oregon, NW California, and SW Washington; the Willamette Valley filled with floodwater that backed up behind the Columbia Gorge.
Visit the nation’s site →This page is built from public and published sources, and it is incomplete by nature. We invite the nations represented here to correct it, expand it, or guide what it should say — including asking that something be removed. Contact Ryan Abrahamsen, Terrain360: ryan@terrain360.com.