CANYON CREEK Canyon Creek is the site of a skirmish in the continuing flight of the nontreaty Nez Perce during the 1877 war. After emerging from Yellowstone National Park, the Nez Perce went north toward Canada. Just north of the Yellowstone River they fought a series of successful rear guard actions. Their success delayed the pursuing army troops and permitted the flight toward Canada to continue. The site, which is 8 miles north of Laurel, Montana, can be reached by the Buffalo Trail Road. It is marked at a roadside pullout with a stone monument and bronze plaque erected by the Yellowstone Historical Society. The battlefield site occupies a vast open ground accentuated by the monumental proportions of Horse Cache Butte and adjacent rim-rock landforms that form the entrance and sides of Canyon Creek Canyon. The battlefield is largely unaltered; it visually evokes a strong feeling of its 1877 past, when it consisted of undulating grassy sage-covered ridges and plains. (The cavalrymen) fought on foot over some eight miles of difficult and intersected ground, on the heels of a forced march of 80 miles, almost without rest and on half rations, and this preceded by two days of severe exertion, during which 70 miles, chiefly of mountain climbing, had been covered, and men and horses were pushed to the very verge of physical endurance, yet there was not seen a falter or a moment's need of urging forward. Major Lewis Merrill

	State: Montana Unit: Montana