The first Euramericans to visit the Columbia River, noting that the tops of Salish heads were not pointed like those of neighboring tribes who practice vertical head binding, called them the Flathead Indians.

In response to a visit by four Flatheads to St. Louis and an entreaty to General William Clark for someone to bring the "Book of Heaven", prophesied in a vision, to the Salish people, thirty-year-old Jason Lee had been chosen to head a Methodist mission to the Salish.

Born on a farm near Stanstead, Quebec, Lee travels overland with a part of missionaries, arriving in Fort Vancouver in 1834.

After the site of their first mission is abandoned as unhealthy, ...