The Northwest Company manager, or bourgeois, at Fort Assiniboine was Charles Chaboillez, to whom Lewis and Clark sent a cautiously cordial letter via free trader Hugh McCracken on 31 October 1804. Chaboillez replied in due time, expressing “a great anxiety to Serve us,” Clark noted, “in any thing in his power.”
Related Pages
October 31, 1804
Black Cat speaks
Clark visits Posecopsahe (Black Cat), the main chief at Ruptáre, one of the five Knife River Villages. Posecopsahe wishes for peace and returns two beaver traps recently stolen from two French traders.
December 16, 1804
A letter from Chaboillez
At Fort Mandan, traders Hugh Heney and François-Antoine Larocque bring a letter from the manager of Fort Assiniboine of the North West Company accompanied by George Budge of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
March 7, 1805
Charbonneau's windfall
At Fort Mandan, Charbonneau returns with a large assortment of North West Company trade goods. A child is given Rush’s Thunderbolts, a strong laxative, and work on the new canoes continues.
Clark’s Fort Mandan Maps
by Joseph A. Mussulman
While wintering over at Fort Mandan, Clark made a series of maps based on Indian information and previous traders such as John Evans and François Larocque.
Pryor’s Intended Route
The best of intentions
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Via the shorter route, Pryor would have arrived at the Knife River villages by about 6 August 1806. A trip to see Hugh Heney at Fort Assiniboine would take another two weeks.
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.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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