Wind River Reservation

The Wind River Reservation covers about 3,500 square miles of central Wyoming, from the high peaks of the Wind River Range down to sagebrush basins and river valleys. It is the state's only reservation and is unusual in being shared by two separate sovereign tribes, the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho, historic rivals who each run their own government. The Eastern Shoshone, under Chief Washakie, secured the land in the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868. The Army brought the Northern Arapaho here in 1878, supposedly temporarily, and they stayed.

The Eastern Shoshone are based at Fort Washakie and the Northern Arapaho at Ethete. In 1989 the tribes won one of the largest reserved water rights in the West, nearly 500,000 acre-feet a year. In 2017 a federal appeals court ruled that a 1905 law had removed the city of Riverton and nearby land from the reservation, a decision the tribes contest. Fort Washakie is the traditional burial place of Sacajawea of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, though that is disputed, and bison were returned to tribal land in 2016.

• Shoshone National Forest
  America's first national forest, east of Yellowstone in Wyoming borders
• Wyoming
  The least populous state, high plains and the Rockies located in
• Red Desert
  Wyoming’s high sagebrush desert, where the Continental Divide splits near
• The Rocky Mountains
  The backbone of western North America related