The geography here is dramatic and sometimes confusing. The Clearwater River flows from the east, its waters remarkably clear after filtering through the forests of the Nez Perce National Forest. It joins the Snake River at Lewiston's western edge, but the Snake doesn't continue west - it turns sharply south, cutting between Lewiston and its twin city of Clarkston, Washington. The two rivers have carved a canyon deeper than the surrounding Palouse prairie, creating a climate unlike the wheat country above. Lewiston sits in a thermal belt where temperatures run ten to fifteen degrees warmer than the hilltops, making this banana-belt microclimate the warmest spot in Idaho.

The smell of wood pulp still drifts through Lewiston when the wind is right. Unlike the tourist towns of northern Idaho, this is a place where people make things. The Clearwater Paper mill processes timber into pulp and paper. The port loads agricultural products from the Palouse wheat fields above. Lewis-Clark State College trains the next generation of workers. The architecture reflects honest labor rather than resort prosperity - practical brick buildings downtown, working-class neighborhoods on the flats, newer development climbing the Lewiston Orchards bench above. The median home price here remains affordable by Idaho standards, a consequence of distance from both Boise and the Spokane suburbs that have transformed other regional cities.

Approaching Lewiston from the north means descending the Lewiston Hill, a series of switchbacks that drops 2,000 feet in seven miles. The old road, now closed, was steeper and more treacherous - locals still tell stories of runaway trucks and white-knuckle descents. The current highway, opened in 1977, is safer but still dramatic, revealing the valley floor far below in a panorama that encompasses both cities, both rivers, and the forested ridges beyond. At the bottom, the temperature changes noticeably. In winter, you can leave snow on the hilltop and arrive in rain below. In summer, the valley traps heat that the uplands never feel. The hill is more than a road - it's a threshold between climates, between landscapes, between Idaho's identity as a mountain state and this anomalous valley where the Pacific Northwest begins.

Long before gold seekers arrived, this valley belonged to the Nez Perce people. Their name for the confluence is lost, but their presence is not. The Lewis and Clark expedition passed through in 1805, relying on Nez Perce guidance to cross the Bitterroot Mountains. The city's name honors Meriwether Lewis; Clarkston across the river honors William Clark. The partnership was asymmetrical. Within decades of Lewis and Clark's passage, settlers claimed Nez Perce lands, and the tribe was eventually confined to a reservation southeast of town. Today, the Nez Perce Tribe operates a casino and maintains their language and traditions, their presence a reminder that this valley's history extends far beyond the gold rush that created the modern city.