This past summer, a gold pan was donated to the Lemhi County Historical Society. Its previous owner was Earl Parrott. The pan was originally found in 1961 by Martin McGregor, who was just 15 years old at the time. In 2025, McGregor donated the pan to the Lemhi County Museum for inclusion in the River Exhibit—a remarkable find and an even more generous donation.
Known as the “Hermit of Impassable Canyon”, Parrott lived on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River from the early 1900s to 1942. He was a hermit, but still needed supplies—specifically salt, matches, tea, and bullets—which he obtained through a seventy-mile trip to Shoup once a year. To pay for these supplies, Parrott traded the gold dust he panned from the creek near his cabins and at a sandy beach along the Middle Fork, now named Parrott Placer Camp.
Parrott built two cabins in the canyon, a small one down near the river and a larger one high on the canyon wall, around 2,000 feet above, accessible only by ladder and rope. The upper cabin is where he maintained an extensive garden. He nimbly scrambled up and down the cliffs on a series of hand-hewn log ladders perched against the rock walls, a sight to behold as he moved swiftly between his two cabins.
The upper cabin is where he maintained an extensive garden. Irrigating from Nugget Creek, Parrott raised corn, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, beets, carrots, peppers, squash, cucumbers, raspberries, strawberries, watermelons, peaches, and apricots. For meat, he hunted wild game from a blind he built in the trees. The cabin by the Middle Fork is the only one of Parrott’s structures that remains today and can be seen on the second-to-last day of a Middle Fork Salmon trip, at mile 88 near Nugget Creek.
There are numerous stories about Parrott, mostly from boaters who were curious about the hermit. Cort Conley has written a terrific book about Idaho hermits and includes an excerpt on Parrott in Idaho Loners.
In July 1939, Frazier again boated the Middle Fork and stopped to see Parrott, who didn’t appreciate the intrusion. The only existing film of Parrott was shot during this visit. Frazier’s colleague, Charles Kelly, noted in his diary that Parrott said, “If he knew we were coming he would have hidden out. Don’t like company. Says he used to go two years without seeing anyone, but now hunters disturb him every few months … Has to go five miles now to hunt deer in the fall. Country is getting too crowded. Used to go 70 miles for supplies. Now goes 10 miles to CCC camp [Civilian Conservation Corps] and bums a ride to town … Don’t like radio. Would rather hear the coyotes howl.”
