Aashishe

Aashishe lies on the upper Missouri River in what is now central Montana, in rugged country just west of the Great Falls. Mountains and sparse grassland meet here, and the cold, dry climate favored wild game, above all bison.

This was Blackfoot country. Piegan bands hunted along the Missouri and its tributaries, using horses from the eighteenth century to follow the herds. In June 1805 the Lewis and Clark expedition reached the Great Falls of the Missouri, five cataracts in about ten miles, and spent weeks hauling its canoes and baggage around them. Trappers and fur traders followed in the decades after.