The saga of the northwest indians probably began millennia ago when hunting families in search of food set out from siberia, walked across a land bridge, the bering strait, to a new country that became known as alaska. later, many indian tribes lived south of the arctic circle and divided into two distinct language groups: the algonquians extended eastward to below hudson bay, and the athapascans stayed in northwest canada. gradually, some of each group moved southward. the lewis and clark explorers of 1803 to 1806 probably were the first white men to be seen by some descendants of those ancient athapascan tribes. mainly they lived on the north side of the columbia river; on the south side of the river tribes of the salishan language family located. salishan indians derived their name from the salish, another name for the flathead tribes of montana. among other tribes of this group are chelan, okanogan, wasco, kwakiutle, aleut, etc. нужно перевести
