Watercolor provided by waynewilsonart.com
Old Dorion signs on
While heading up the Missouri River near present Dalton, Missouri, the expedition meets a group of boats led by Pierre Dorion, Sr. He and an unnamed expedition member trade places—the latter going back to St. Louis with the traders and Dorion leaving with the expedition as an interpreter.
Searching for the Falls
Lewis hikes over the plains in search of the Great Falls of the Missouri, and he sees the Rocky Mountain Front. He has an encounter with a grizzly bear, describes two types of cottonwood trees, and then goes fishing. Clark takes the boats up the Missouri past black clay bluffs and rattlesnakes nearly reaching present Fort Benton. Sacagawea remains ill. [...]
The beautiful Weippe Prairie
At Weippe Prairie in present Idaho, the expedition members wait for the Bitterroot Mountain snow to melt, while the warmer weather brings camas blooms and their "old companions"—mosquitoes. Lewis collects two more plant specimens: prairie smoke and American bistort.
10 January–30 August 1803
The Lewis and Clark Expedition ostensibly began in February 1801 when President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Army commander General James Wilkinson requesting that Lieutenant Meriwether Lewis become the President’s personal secretary. Exploration of North America’s western half had long been a goal of the president, and now he had a young protégé who might lead such an expedition.
On 18 January 1803, Lewis hand-delivers to the U.S. Congress the President’s request to fund what would become known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The President works in Washington City and Monticello to craft instructions and line up the best talent to assist Lewis. In France, three diplomats negotiate with Napoleon Bonaparte to purchase the Louisiana Territory.
Meriwether receives training, supplies and equipment in Philadelphia and avails himself of armaments and specialized equipment—including a collapsable iron-framed boat—at the Schuylkill and Harpers Ferry arsenals. By July 1803, everything is at Fort Fayette in Pittsburgh. All Lewis needs is a large boat to carry everything down the Ohio. He also needs to know if William Clark will accept his invitation to join him.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
14 May–20 July 1804
On 14 May 1804—after more than a year of preparation and travel—the boats leave Camp River Dubois and head up the Missouri River. At St. Charles, the two captains, Clark’s slave York, interpreter George Drouillard, eight or nine French engagés, 34 enlisted men, and Lewis’s dog Seaman depart in three boats: the barge and two large pirogues.
Everyone quickly learns of the struggles and hazards of moving up the Missouri with its many sawyers and sandbars. Despite the overloaded boats and several close calls, they safely pass many landmarks made familiar by earlier traders from St. Louis.
Crossing the present state of Missouri and then heading north along the Kansas-Missouri border, they pass the homelands of the Omaha, Kansa, Otoe, and Pawnee. On 21 July, they reach the mouth of the Platte where only a handful of traders had ever continued north towards the Knife River Villages.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
7 April–12 June 1805
At 4 p.m. on 7 April 1805, the permanent party heads their six canoes and two pirogues up the Missouri toward the Rocky Mountain barrier. At the same moment, Corp. Warfington and a small crew accompanied by Too Né’s delegation bound for a meeting with President Jefferson head downriver in the barge.
The Missouri River reaches it most northern position flowing from the Great Falls of the Missouri across present Montana and North Dakota. Moving through this stretch, the expedition passes the Yellowstone, Milk, Poplar, and Musselshell rivers. In the Upper Missouri River Breaks, the journalists describe both “scenes of barrenness and desolation” and “seens of visionary inchantment”.
At the mouth of the Marias, they come to a river they did not expect. They are unsure which fork is the true Missouri. After ten days exploring each, the captains decide to take the left fork.
Lewis scouts ahead to find the Falls of the Missouri that they are expecting. Sacagawea becomes dangerously ill and travels with Clark and the boats until they can go no farther—below present Belt Creek.
If the expedition is to be successful, Sacagawea will need gain her health, and the heavy boats will need to be carted around not one, but several waterfalls on a long and difficult portage.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
10 June–14 July 1806
With the acquisition of horses, Native Nations crossing the Rocky Mountains to hunt for bison became more common. Two of their trails are used by the captains—in separate groups—to return to the bison-rich plains.
After crossing the Bitterroot Mountains on what is known today as the Lolo Trail, the expedition divides forces at Travelers’ Rest. Lewis takes one group east and north up the Blackfoot River and then over Lewis and Clark Pass. They return to their old camp above the Great Falls of the Missouri to retrieve supplies and specimens cached there.
From Travelers’ Rest, Clark goes up the Bitterroot River and crosses the Continental Divide at present Gibbons Pass. They cross the Big Hole Valley and return to Fortunate Camp where they had cached tobacco, food, and most of the canoes.
At the Headwaters of the Missouri, Sgt. Ordway’s detachment paddles the canoes down the Missouri destined for the portage of the Great Falls. Clark’s group–along with all the horses—travel up the Gallatin River valley on their way to the Yellowstone River.
Day-by-Day Pages In-depth Articles
Private
Windsor helped recover three orphaned grizzly bear cubs of a sow they killed on a hunt in early April of 1806. According to Lewis, they traded the cubs to some coastal Indians, who, “fancyed these petts and gave us wappetoe in exchange for them.”
Private
The captains sent four men to retrieve Gibson, “who is so much reduced that he cannot stand alone and…they are obliged to carry him in a litter.” They arrived on February 15, and Lewis went to work sweating the “veery languid” Gibson with saltpeter and dosing him with laudanum for sleep.
Private
He had gotten off to a bad start, but apparently, the captains, or at least Clark, saw something in him that was worth saving. They would name Idaho’s Lolo Creek, Collins Creek.
Meriwether Lewis William Clark Sacagawea York Jean Baptiste Charbonneau Seaman All Members
The Bears Tooth
Fort Owen—Flathead Village
Lolo Hot Springs
The American portraitist, artist and illustrator John Mix Stanley (1814-1872), served as one of the official artists with the Stevens railroad survey party to the Northwest. His record of highlights along the route often combined documentary verisimilitude with romantic fantasy.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition benefited from the Indians’ knowledge and support. Maps, route information, food, horses, open-handed friendship—all gave the Corps of Discovery the edge that spelled the difference between success and failure.
From clichés and colorful sayings of the time to Native American languages, these pages feature the art of language.
To cross the Rocky Mountains, the Lewis and Clark Expedition needed horses and the skills to manage them. Despite their seemingly constant struggle to find missing and stolen horses, as a kind of calvary unit, they left hoof prints on approximately 1,500 miles of western terrain.
Starting with its genesis in Jefferson’s Monticello, Lewis’s training and preparations in Philadelphia, and the barge’s excursion down the Ohio River, the route they took, often called the Lewis and Clark Trail, crosses the continent weaving an epic tale of western exploration treasured by many today.
From major crisis such as the death of Sgt. Floyd, Lewis’s gunshot wound, and the illness of Sacagawea to minor events such as sexually transmitted diseases, mosquito-born illnesses, and deep cuts, the medical aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition provide an interesting topic of study.
Because of the literate journalists, historians and visual artists can tell the Expedition’s story. When they celebrated with song and dance, we too can share in the experience.
Although hunting and fishing were often considered a ‘gentleman’s sport’ especially in Europe, hunting and fishing for Native Americans and Americans alike were a matter of survival. The success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition depended on the success of its hunters.
Given President Jefferson’s directive to establish commerce, the captains worked extensively within a long-established network of North American fur trade. Part of their mission was to help establish the United States of America’s position within that industry.
The President’s representatives in Paris had bargained successfully with Napoleon’s bureaucrats not only to buy the port of New Orleans, then the keystone of the continent, but also to acquire, at three cents an acre, an area extending from the Mississippi River to . . . where? No one knew until Meriwether Lewis stood at the crest of the Rocky Mountains at a place known today as Lemhi Pass, on 12 August 1805.
Starting at Pittsburgh, traveling to the Pacific Ocean, and then returning to St. Louis, the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled approximately 10,600 miles. Of that, 85%—over 9,000 miles—was by boat. To understand travel in the early 1800 American West is to understand the boats and challenges of river navigation.
Expedition Calendar
Links to every day-by-day page in a calendar format spanning 31 August 1803 to 26 September 1806. A page every day!
The success of the Lewis and Clark Expedition was due to its many members and the people they met, including politicians, Eastern gentleman scientists, traders, and the many people already living in the American west.
Throughout the expedition the soldiers were expected to conform to the rules and routines of the frontier soldier of 1803.
Lewis and Clark left behind among many Indians a legacy of nonviolent contact. Those who came later enjoyed that legacy and too often betrayed it.
Legacy is a very slippery sort of term. If we could erase our myth concepts of Lewis and Clark … it might reawaken something really extraordinary in our national consciousness.
Other topics include music, holidays, High Potential Historic Sites, and an index of articles from We Proceeded On.
Their work in the emerging fields of botany, ethnography, geography, geology, and zoology are now considered classics of early American scientific literature.
Lewis and Clark were among several significant explorers of North America both before and after the expedition.
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with additional funding from the following:
