Joseph Mussulman
Marc A. Hefty photo.
Photo by Bill Bevis.
Left to right: Two concerned dugout canoe owners, one concerned expert paddler, and Joe grinning with delight
Joseph A. Mussulman (1928–2017) was the founding producer, editor and writer for Discovering Lewis & Clark. After five years of preparation and experimentation the website went online in 1998, under the auspices of a non-profit entity called VIAs Inc., and funded by grants from various sources, especially–throughout the bicentennial observance from 2003 to 2006–the Challenge Cost Share Program of the National Park Service. In 2009 the site was taken over by the Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation of Washburn, North Dakota.
Dr. Mussulman earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music history and literature at Northwestern University in 1950 and 1951. As a Danforth Scholar he earned a doctorate in humanities from Syracuse University in 1967.
He has written and produced a number of interpretive programs in collaboration with audio specialist Richard H. Kuschel, also of Missoula Montana. In 1986, he wrote, narrated, and co-produced a multimedia presentation for the Blaine County Museum (MT) titled Forty Miles from Freedom, about the Non-Treaty Nez Perce Indians’ final battle with the U.S. Army, at the Bear Paw Mountains in 1877. In 2012-13 Mussulman and Kuschel revised the 20-minute onsite production and updated it in High Definition video. In 1994 their interactive self-guided audio-CD tour of Yellowstone National Park, a five-hour program produced for Tour Technologies, Inc., received first prize in the category of media productions from the National Association for Interpretation. Their Two Days to Destiny, an audio interpretive tour of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, won first place from the NAI in 1995.
Mussulman is the author of five articles on Lewis and Clark that appeared in We Proceeded On, the official journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc.: “My Boy Pomp’: About That Name,” Vol. 21, No. 2 (May 1995); “Soundscapes: The Sonic Dimensions of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” Vol. 21, No. 4 (November 1995); “Men in High Spirits: Humor on the Lewis and Clark Trail,” Vol.22, No. 2 (May 1996); “‘In Greatest Harmoney’: ‘Meddicine Songs’ on the Lewis and Clark Trail,” Vol. 23, No. 4 (November 1997); and “Pomp’s bier was a bar,” Vol. 27, No. 1 (February 2001).
Dr. Mussulman has designed and produced maps for various books, brochures and study guides about Lewis and Clark, including 58 full-color maps illustrating the expedition’s entire route from coast to coast for the travelers’ guide, Along the Trail with Lewis and Clark, by Barbara Fifer and Vicky Soderberg (2nd ed., Helena: Montana Magazine, 2001). Those maps also appeared in the same publisher’s annual Lewis and Clark Travel Planner and Guide. They may be seen in Discovering Lewis & Clark at Discovering Lewis & Clark from the Air. In 1998, he created a poster illustrating the trail from Washington, D.C. to the Pacific, for Farcountry Press.
His other publications include a biography, Dear People . . . Robert Shaw (Indiana University Press,1979; reprint, Chapel Hill, NC: Hinshaw Music, 1996), and Music in the Cultured Generation (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974). From 1987 through 1998 he was the interpretive writer and designer of Montana Afloat, a series of sixteen maps of Montana’s major floatable rivers.
Dr. Mussulman was a 1999 recipient of a Montana Governor’s Arts Award. Several years later he received an award of meritorious achievement from the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation “for outstanding contributions in bring to this nation a greater awareness and appreciation of the Lewis and Clark expedition.” In 2005, he received the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award.
Contributions to this Site
Arrival at the Pacific
Exploring Long Beach
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark was pleased that his men appeared “much Satisfied with their trip beholding with estonishment the high waves dashing against the rocks & this emence ocean.”
York’s Fallout over Freedom
by Joseph A. Mussulman
It is remarkable that we have no record of York’s words and thoughts. Insofar as the nineteenth century “slave narratives” were produced by Africans who had freed themselves, it may be conjectured that York did not leave a record of his thoughts and experiences because he was never freed.
Indian Commissions
Tools of diplomacy
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Each peace medal given out was usually accompanied by a commission, also called a parole, which is the French word for promise..
The “Deserts of America”
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The men of the Corps of Discovery were fascinated by the varied textures, shapes and colors of the 200- to 300-foot cliffs that defined the river’s immediate borderlands. Clark judged from all he could see that “this Countrey may with propriety … be termed the Deserts of America.”
Holidays at Fort Clatsop
by Joseph A. Mussulman
At dawn the captains were roused, according to Clark, by “the discharge of the fire arm[s] of all our party & a Selute, Shoute and a Song which the whole party joined in under our windows, after which they retired to their rooms [and] were Chearfull all the morning.”
Over Tillamook Head
Clark's point of view
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After passing the salt works and continuing along the “round Slippery Stones under a high hill,” Clark related, “my guide made a Sudin halt, pointed to the top of the mountain and uttered the word Pe Shack which means bad, and made Signs that we . . . must pass over that mountain.
The Salmon River
A river of no return
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On the 23 August 1805, the centuries-old fantasy of a “water route across the continent for the purposes of commerce” dissolved in the roar of an unimaginable torrent–one of the most dangerous, unforgiving rivers in North America, that would later be called “The River of No Return.”
Bivouac at Tongue Point
A long and wet encampment
by Joseph A. Mussulman
As the Corps rounded Tongue Point the wind rose hard from the west, and heavy seas with torrential rain forced them back to the east shore of the narrow isthmus, where they huddled for ten miserable days.
Mapping the Rockies
Expectation v. reality
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Clark evidently began compiling a map of the Northern Rockies after meeting with Hugh Heney at Fort Mandan on 18 December 1804, and continued adding information acquired from other traders, as well as from Indians. The reality, he would find, was much different.
Lewis’s Education
Education for the young gentleman
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Land management introduced the pupil to the practical aspects of natural history. Jefferson recalled Lewis’s “talent for observation, which had led him to an accurate knowledge of the plants and animals of his own country, would have distinguished him as a farmer.”
White-tailed Deer
Odocoileus virginianus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis had no reason to write about the common or fallow deer of the East Coast, although in using it for the purpose of comparison, he gave quite a clear picture of it. John Godman’s 1828 description relied partly on Lewis and Clark’s journals.
Pryor Creek
Ill-fated mission
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The stream Clark named for Nathaniel Pryor meanders from its montane sources in the mountain range that now bears Pryor’s name to join the Yellowstone River in the area where Pryor began his ill-fated diplomatic mission.
The Mouth of the Missouri
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The Missouri River still contributes its tint a few miles north of St. Louis. It is difficult to determine exactly how much, and how often, the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers changed during the nine decades after the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Postscript to the Purchase
Mapping the American future
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Pierce Mullen
Determining the extent of the upper Missouri watershed was the single most important task Lewis and Clark faced. Their search for the westernmost source of the Jefferson River nearly cost them their lives.
Western Spring Beauty
Claytonia lanceolata
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 25 June 1806, on the branch of Hungery Creek where they “nooned it,” Sacagawea brought the captains “a parcel of roots” that Lewis immediately recognized as the kind Drouillard had given him ten months earlier.
Fort Clatsop Today
Reconstructing the fort
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Today’s Fort Clatsop stands at or near the site of the Corps’ winter encampment of 1805-06 was built on the same floor plan that Clark drew on the cover of the Elkskin-covered Journal. The rest of the present structure resembles the original only in a remote sense.
Travelers’ Rest
Hub of the west
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In the afternoon of 9 September 1805 they turned westward at a creek they dubbed Travelers’ Rest, today known as Lolo Creek. They stopped at a gathering place that Indians had been using for that same purpose for thousands of years.
Fight on the Two Medicine
An "accedental interview"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The Indians invited the Americans to share a campsite that night. At daybreak, despite the soldiers’ watchfulness, the Indians tried to steal the Americans’ guns and horses. That immediately erupted into a skirmish.
Louisville
Kentucky recruits
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark was waiting with seven more recruits who would become permanent members of the contingent soon to be known as the Corps of Volunteers for North Western Discovery.
Long-tailed Weasels
Mustela frenata
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The captains saw their first white weasel at Fort Mandan on 9 November 1804. At Fort Clatsop on Christmas Day, 1805, Sacagawea gave Clark “2 Doz wesels tales.”
Classifying Bighorn Sheep
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The first naturalist to publish an honest admission of uncertainty over the respective identities of the wild sheep and goat of North America was John Davidson Godman (1794-1830). Audubon and Bachman contributed illustrations and descriptions.
Fort Clatsop’s Legacy
by Joseph A. Mussulman
One of the first writers to devote special attention to the question of Fort Clatsop’s post-history was Olin D. Wheeler, who visited the site with Coboway’s grandson, Silas B. Smith, in 1900, and wrote briefly of it.
Estimate of the Eastern Indians
Early intelligence report
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The expedition had one major outcome that was made available to the public well before the expedition was over, the “Estimate of the Eastern Indians,” which Lewis and Clark sent back on the barge in April 1805.
Shipping the Supplies
Quartermaster Lewis
by Frank Muhly, Joseph A. Mussulman
Considering all he had to do to prepare for the expedition, Lewis was fortunate in that he could rely on a small cadre of Army personnel to help him assemble, pack, and ship his supplies.
Floyd’s Monument by Air
"Much Lamented"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 20 August 1804, the Corps proceeded thirteen miles, while young Floyd quickly grew worse. A little past noon they landed, and presently Floyd said, “I am going away.”
Richardson’s Ground Squirrel
Spermophilus richardsonii
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis wrote his brief account of the new species on 25 February 1806: “the small grey squirrel common to every part of the rocky mountain which is timbered, difirs from the dark brown squirrel . . . only in its colour.”
The Tambourine
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Instruments resembling tambourines are mentioned several times in the journals, but always in descriptions of Indian music, except for Sergeant Ordway’s comment on New Year’s Day of 1805.
Bugs
Worthy of notice
by Joseph A. Mussulman
President Jefferson directed Lewis to observe seasonal transitions as they are marked by the “times of appearance of particular birds, reptiles or insects.”
Reunion
Lewis and Pryor catch up
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After splitting up into five separate details over five weeks earlier, all the members of the Corps of Discovery were finally reunited 142 miles downriver from the mouth of the Yellowstone.
Oregon Grapes
Berberis aquifolium
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In his journal for 12 February 1806, Lewis described the plant that now goes by the name Berberis aquifolium, which he had first noticed in the vicinity of the Cascades of the Columbia River, about 145 miles from the ocean.
Order of Encampment
Lay out of the nightly camps
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Spacing between tents, as well as lines of tents, was strictly measured. Privates’ tents, accommodating 6 men each, were between the sergeants’ tents; all were two feet apart. The “sink,” or latrine, was to be 60 paces (300 feet) in front of the first line of tents.
End of the Enlightenment
Anti calomel and the "genteel tradition"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
No more calomel! Not just an anthem, a reflection on the transition from the “Age of Enlightenment” to the “genteel tradition.”
Indian Presentation Flags
What kind of flag did they give out?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Several vexillologists have speculated that Lewis and Clark might have carried some “Indian presentation flags” with seventeen stripes, plus the Great Seal in the canton with seventeen stars either surrounding the eagle or inside the Glory.
Lemhi Pass by Air
Division point
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The gravel road winding parallels Trail Creek, which is lined by low willows. It corresponds roughly to the Indian road that Lewis, Drouillard, Shields, and McNeal followed westward from the forks of the Beaverhead River.
Mosquito Netting
Pomp's 'bier' was a 'bar'
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis writes: “the bier in which the woman carrys her child and all it’s cloaths wer swept away as they lay at her feet she having time only to grasp her child.” This bier, then, is a bar or net serving to keep mosquitos from one’s personal blood supply.
Through Wallula Gap
Yelleppit and Sacagawea help out
by Joseph A. Mussulman
They encountered several rapids that nineteenth of October, including “a verry bad one” about two miles long. Clark climbed a 200-foot “clift” from which he could see many miles across the high desert.
The Jefferson Canyon
The fourth mountain gate
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
On 1 August 1805, Clark and the expedition’s flotilla of eight dugout canoes pushed up the Jefferson River through “a verrey high mountain which jutted its tremendious Clifts on either Side for 9 Miles, the rocks ragide.” They emerged into a “wide exte[n]sive vallie.”
Making Leather
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“The men of the garison are still busily employed in dessing Elk’s skins for cloathing.” Regrettably, Lewis was compelled to add that “they find great difficulty for the want of branes [brains].”
Big Bend of the Missouri by Air
Around the bend
by Joseph A. Mussulman
They paced off the distance across “the gouge,” wrote Clark, and found it to be about a mile and a quarter; he estimated the distance around the oxbow to be thirty miles.
Fort Clatsop
Looking for a winter camp
by Joseph A. Mussulman
They had sketched out a plan for their fort, but it seemed that finding a level spot at least fifty feet square would be next to impossible.
Unviolated Forests
The Bitterroot National Forest
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The orator spoke of the promises of “regions yet groaning under unviolated forests.” Lewis responded similarly: “With you I trust, that the discoveries we have made will not long remain unimproved.”
Outfitting the Expedition
Buying supplies in Philadelphia and St. Louis
by Frank Muhly, Joseph A. Mussulman
The original shopping list contained more than 180 items, including various “Mathematical Instruments”, arms and accouterments, ammunition, clothing, camp equipage, provisions, Indian presents, medicine, and packing materials.
Mosquito Ills and Cures
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Symptoms of the ague, a disease that would later be called malaria, were recorded in the journals. Unknown to anyone at that time, this illness was carried by mosquitoes. What did they do to prevent bites and treat mosquito-born illnesses?
Finding the Yellowstone
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Rick Newby
As he started over the mountains at today’s Bozeman they observed several Indian and buffalo roads heading northeast across the mountains. Clark reported, “the indian woman who has been of great Service to me as a pilot through this Country recommends a gap.”
The Wabash River
Familiar water
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis, Clark, and their crew must have passed the mouth of the Wabash about 5 November 1803. The captains had crisscrossed the area in the course of their military duties, and in 1792 Clark had gained one of his first experiences in river navigation.
The Blackfoot River by Air
Prairie of the knobs
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 6 July 1806, Lewis’s eleven-man party had broken camp at the mouth of a Blackfoot River tributary they named Seamans Creek, after, and headed on up the river along the “road” that Indians living in the Rocky Mountains called the Cokahlahrishkit—the Road to the Buffalo.
Fort Clatsop Detachment Orders
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The captains issued Detachment Orders showing the degree to which Lewis and Clark consistently maintained the spirit of Baron von Steuben’s Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States.
The Dalles
Through the Narrows
by Joseph A. Mussulman
There really was no need for him to have been on the defensive. Pierre Cruzatte cast a spell over the assembled Indians with his fiddle, which was much more effective than any pompous diplomatic talk.
Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809)
The life of Captain Lewis
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Born on 18 August 1774, he was exactly eight months old when Paul Revere made the legendary ride that signaled the beginning of the War of Independence, and the birth of the new United States of America, which Lewis was to serve with distinction.
Blowflies
Calliphora sp.
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 20 May 1805, the captains named a certain watercourse Blowing Fly Creek, “from the immence quantities of those insects found in this neighbourhood.” As Lewis explained, “they infest our meat while roasting or boiling, and we are obliged to brush them off our provision as we eat.”
Major Owen’s Lolos
An early settler's records
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Bitterroot Valley businessman John Owen counted no Lolos among the customers he dealt with at Fort Owen, but he occasionally hired one as a trail-hand.
Lewis’s Three Wishes
Pencil, pen, and camera obscura
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“I wished for the pencil of Salvator Rosa, or the pen of Thompson, that I might be enabled to give to the enlightened world some just idea of this truly magnifficent and sublimely grand object, which has from the commencement of time been concealed from the view of civilized man”
Fleas
Pulex irritans
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Nearly a century and a half before Lewis and Clark’s encounter with fleas en masse on the lower Columbia River, the little insect acquired an almost admirable, if not respectable, reputation, thanks to Hooke and his microscope.
La Charrette
Outpost
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 25 May 1804, about forty river-miles above St. Charles, the expedition camped near a small village at the mouth of a creek called Charrette. Its seven French families had arrived only a few years before. The family of Daniel Boone moved there sometime after 1804.
Yokes
Instruments and metaphors
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1806, Noah Webster defined the noun yoke as “a bandage on the neck, chain, bond, bondage, mark of servitude, couple, pair.” The word yoke can also denote a type of wooden device to harness animals that have been bred and trained to pull heavy loads.
Spirit Mound by Air
"Unusual spirits"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 25 August 1804, obedient to Jefferson’s instruction to observe Indians traditions, monuments and landmarks, Lewis and Clark went inland to visit a “conic form” rising from the plain.
Arrow Rock
Handsome spot
by Joseph A. Mussulman
It was a hard and dangerous day’s work getting past the wooded bluff called Arrow Rock on 9 June 1804. It was a “disagreeable and Dangerous situation,” wrote Clark.
The Milk River by Air
Milky blend
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“from the colour of it’s water we called it Milk river.” He wondered whether this might be the river the Hidatsas had called “the river which scoalds at all others.”
Robert Frazer
Private
by Barbara Fifer, Joseph A. Mussulman
At a place where “one false Step of a horse would be certain destruction,” Frazer’s pack horse took that fateful step, lost its footing and rolled with its load “near a hundred yards into the Creek,” over “large irregular and broken rocks.”
Wilson’s “Foresters”
An early American epic poem
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Alexander Wilson’s epic poem The Foresters, was a tediously versified 2,210-line diary of his twelve hundred mile round-trip hike from Philadelphia to Niagara Falls in the autumn of 1804.
Domestic Dogs
What Lewis was describing
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The Corps’ journalists, in their accounts of new species of mammals they encountered on the expedition, would occasionally call to mind comparable features of domestic canids whenever it was appropriate—in terms of their sizes, morphology, and “notes” or barks.
Beacon Rock by Air
Tidewater mark
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 31 October 1805, Clark first saw this “remarkable high detached rock,” the eroded core of an ancient volcano, which he estimated stood eight hundred feet above the riverbank and was four hundred yards in circumference.
The Marias River Risk
"Of highest national importance"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Why was it so important that Meriwether Lewis was willing to risk his life in a region occupied by the “Pahkees” or Minnetares, the Assiniboines, and other people whom he had been led—by their enemies, of course—to believe were “vicious and illy disposed”?
Edible Valerian
Valeriana edulis
by Joseph A. Mussulman
One of the roots obtained by George Drouillard on 21 August 1805 may have been a species of valerian (vuh-LEHR-ee-an), such as Valeriana edulis (vuh-leh-ree-AYE-nuh ed-YOU-lis), or edible valerian.
Lignite
'Strater of carbonated wood'
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Lewis and Clark sometimes called this coal “carbonated wood” because sometimes they could see the outlines of woody stems and other plant remains. Coal geologists call it lignite, but Lewis and Clark were essentially correct in their description.
Naming Travelers’ Rest
Thinking of South Carolina?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis and Clark and their men camped on 9–10 September 1805 and again on 30 June though 2 July 1806 beside a stream they called “Travelers Rest Creek.” Meriwether Lewis may have seen or sensed a comparison between it and the Travelers Rest in South Carolina.
Boudin Blanc
Charbonneau's chef d'ouvre
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Meriwether Lewis’s recitation of Charbonneau’s recipe for buffalo sausage, known as “white pudding,” serves not only as documentation of a unique frontier cuisine, but also as an example of the captain’s own brand of satire.
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.
Lewis’s Five Firs
by James L. Reveal, Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis describes one of the richest resources of the Pacific northwest coast: Sitka spruce, western hemlock, grand fir, perhaps the Pacific silver fir, and Douglas-fir.
Mosquito Etymology
Names and classifications
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Potts, might have called it a grosser Mücke (large gnat) or a Stechmücke (biting gnat). Labiche and Drouillard might have called it a cousin or a moucheron. But ever since early Colonial days it has chiefly been known in America by its Spanish name, mosquito.
Where the Buffalo Roam
Anthem of the American West
by Joseph A. Mussulman
For more than a hundred years the American bison has been enshrined as a symbol of the American West in the first line of a song known around the world, “Home on the Range.”
Recognizing Divine Providence
Did they pray?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Did they pray? The answer is yes, they did—to invoke the catch-phrase their journalists sometimes used to generalize about the habits of others—”in their way.”
Apsáalooke Country
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The Crow People called themselves Apsáalooke, sometimes heard as Absarokas or Absalookas, or “Children of the Large-beaked Bird.” Various early white travelers transcribed or defined the name differently, but the Apsáalooke maintain it refers to the raven. One of the oldest and most famous landmarks on Lewis and Clark’s route, now known officially, but erroneously, as Pompeys Pillar or, among the Apsáalooke, Iish-biia ah-naac’he’.
Daniel Boone
Long hunter role model
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Daniel Boone was sixty-nine years old in 1803, too old to go traipsing out to the Pacific Ocean. But Lewis’s “qualifycations” suggest that Boone would have been precisely the kind of hunter he hoped to find.
Clark’s Apsáalooke (Crow) Speech
A speech never given
by Joseph A. Mussulman
While stinging from having so many of his horses stolen, Clark wrote a speech to the Crow Indians imploring them to return the booty. After all, he needed those horses to complete the captain’s bold diplomatic plan.
Gates of the Mountains
The second gate
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Late in the day on 19 July 1805, Lewis and his party entered a canyon between “the most remarkable clifts that we have yet seen.” They seemed to rise “from the waters edge on either side perpendicularly to the hight of 1200 feet.”
Travelers’ Rest Creek
Today's Lolo Creek in Montana
by Joseph A. Mussulman
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, 11 September 1805, Toby led the Corps of Discovery out of Travelers’ Rest camp toward the Bitterroot Mountain barrier.
Nez Perce War of 1877
Forty miles from freedom
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Two troops of the 1st U.S. Cavalry met their first defeat. That set in motion the heroic flight of 450 women, children and elders, 200 warriors, and their only remaining wealth—some 2,000 horses—toward the safe refuge that would forever elude them.
The Lost Trail Divide
Leaving the Indian road
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Continuing north up the North Fork Salmon River, they leave a good Indian road and must cut their own trail. Were they lost? Sergeant Gass’s laconic remark gives us a hint: “This was not the creek our guide wished to have come upon.”
The Salt Works by Air
Seaside, Oregon
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Here they built an oven of stones and, day and night for a month and a half, scooped perhaps 1,400 gallons of water from the surf, boiling it down to about twenty-eight gallons of salt.
The White Cliffs
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Under cloudy skies on the morning of 31 May 1805, the expedition “proceeded at an early hour,” and roped their flotilla of six cottonwood dugout canoes and two big pirogues into one of the most famous riverscapes on the Missouri.
Searching for Salines
Objects worthy of notice
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Among the “objects worthy of notice” President Jefferson instructed Meriwether Lewis to watch for en route were saltpetre deposits and salines. By “salines” Jefferson meant salt flats, salt marshes, salt pans, salt springs, and rock or “fossil” salt deposits.
Making Rope
Using the rope walk
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In a purely physical sense, the expedition was held together by rope. Rope for handling the barge, the pirogues and the canoes. Rope to secure sails and anchors, and for towing. Rope for fastening packages, assembling tents, and controlling horses.
The Clearwater River
Looking for a canoe camp
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark spent the night of 21 September 1805 at Twisted Hair’s camp on an island in the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River. The next morning the chief and his son accompanied him back up to the village on Weippe Prairie where he expected to rendezvous with Lewis.
Early American Flags
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis’s long list of needs for the journey would have been a large supply of American flags, to be flown on their boats, over their camps, and at their council sites. Leading up to the Lewis and Clark expedition, what did the young country’s flags look like?
Eldorado Creek
Full Stomachs to Pheasant Camp
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“we killed a few Pheasants, and I killd a prarie woolf [coyote] which together with the ballance of our horse beef and some crawfish which we obtained in the creek enabled us to make one more hearty meal.
Grouse
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Why did Lewis call the spruce grouse, blue grouse, and Oregon ruffed grouse “Three species of Pheasants?” What species did he actually see?
Wheeler on the Marias
Meeting a Blackfeet survivor
by Barbara Fifer, Joseph A. Mussulman
Traveling through the Marias River country with anthropologist George Bird Grinnell, Wheeler met Wolf Calf, one of the Indian survivors of Lewis’s encounter with the Blackfeet.
Defining ‘Discover’
Shades of meaning
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Dictionary of Bias-Free Usage remonstrated that “only by a strange twist of white ethnocentrism can one be considered to ‘discover’ a continent inhabited by millions of people.” Political correctitude might suggest that we simply drop the word discovery from our Lewis and Clark lexicon, and just speak of the captains as explorers.
Flea Country
A multitude of fleas
by Joseph A. Mussulman
During the portage around the Falls of the Columbia River, as Biddle paraphrased it, “we found that the Indians had camped there not long since, and had left behind them multitudes of fleas.”
Gritty American Place-Names
Robert Southey's criticism
by Joseph A. Mussulman
To the European Romantics, the gritty names those American explorers uttered sounded like throwbacks to a cruder, more barbarous epoch, boding ill for the future of poetic taste in the New World. In 1815, Robert Southey found plenty of evidence.
The Last Dance
What happened to the fiddle?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 8 June 1806, Meriwether Lewis wrote of that evening, “we had the violin played, and [we] danced for the amusement of ourselves and the Indians.” Presumably, Pierre Cruzatte was the fiddler. It was the last mention Cruzatte’s playing the violin. Why?
Spruce Grouse
Falcipennis canadensis
by Joseph A. Mussulman
What is most remarkable about Meriwether Lewis’s work as a naturalist is that he observed and wrote so much about the plants and animals he saw. An unusual example is his description of the bird now commonly known as the spruce grouse.
The Milk River
The river which scolds all others?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Creeping down the nearly imperceptible slope of the northern high plains, this is the stream Lewis and Clark described as possessing a peculiar whiteness, being about the colour of a cup of tea with the admixture of a tablespoonfull of milk.
The Osage Delegations
by Joseph A. Mussulman
They were “certainly the most gigantic men we have ever seen,” Jefferson wrote on 12 July 1804. A dozen Osage men and two boys had arrived in Washington City the previous day, escorted by Pierre Chouteau.
Rainbow Falls by Air
"Pleasingly beautifull"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After briefly contemplating the Crooked Falls on 14 June 1805, Lewis followed the sound of “a tremendious roaring” to “one of the most beautifull objects in nature,” a fifty-foot-high cascade “with an edge as regular and as straight as if formed by art.”
The Barge
Barge, keelboat, or just 'the boat'?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Meriwether Lewis listed a “Keeled Boat” in his pre-expedition shopping list, but after he finally got it, he and the other journalists of the Corps of Discovery simply called it “the boat” (190 times) or, less often, “the barge” (32 times).
The Niobrara River
Rushing river
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“We hoisted Sail,” wrote Ordway, and “ran verry fast a Short time. Broke our mast.” The party “came to” on the west side of the Niobrara. There the men made a new mast from the trunk of a tall, sturdy red cedar, which apparently lasted at least until they reached the Mandan villages.
Eulachon
Thaleichthys pacificus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 24 February 1806, Meriwether Lewis recorded that the Clatsop Indian chief, Coboway, came to the fort to sell some hats, some sturgeon, and “a species of small fish which now begin to run, and are taken in great quantities.”
The Trapper Peaks
Bitterroot Mountain sentinels
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 7 September 1805, the day after they left the Salish people at Ross’s Hole, the Corps proceeded north down the Bitterroot River valley. “The foot of the Snow toped mountains approach near the river on the left,” wrote Clark.
Meeting the Salish
Multiple perspectives
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The story of Lewis and Clark meeting the Flathead Salish on 4 September 1805 at Ross Hole is told by one expedition member, four Salish Indians, and one western artist.
Grizzly Profiles
Grizzly bear legends and facts
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The anecdotes about their experiences with grizzly bears which the members of the Corps of Discovery brought home were gory enough to guarantee that they would be passed along. What are the legends? What are facts?
The Marias River by Air
Narrow escape
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“I sliped at a narrow pass of about 30 yards in length and but for a quick and fortunate recovery by means of my espontoon I should have been precipitated into the river down a craggy pricipice of about ninety feet.”
Lewis’s Shoshone Tippet
Cameahwait's gift
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Cameahwait and some of his people agreed to help the Corps of Discovery carry its baggage over the divide. In the early afternoon. “We now dismounted,” wrote Lewis, “and the Chief with much cerimony put tippets about our necks such as they temselves woar.”
The Falls of the Missouri
by Joseph A. Mussulman
From Indian information the previous winter, the captains knew they would encounter a great falls in the Missouri River. What they found was a 14-mile-long series of waterfalls and rapids that drops 473 feet.
Ecola
Whale tale
by Joseph A. Mussulman
By the time Clark and his party got to present-day Cannon Beach, Oregon, on 8 January 1806, the locals had picked the dead whale’s 105-foot-long carcass clean.
The Newfoundland Dog
Seaman's breed
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The original Newfoundland was smaller, the body more slender, forehead more arched, the muzzle sharper, and “nearly all of a totally black colour, excepting a bright rust coloured spot above each eye.”
Ticks
Ixodida sp.
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In the vicinity of Beacon Rock on 5 April 1806, Clark dutifully looked around for signs that spring had begun. He noticed that “the tick has made it’s appearance.” The ticks waiting for hosts in the vicinity Beacon Rock in April 1806 were likely of the species Ixodes pacificus.
The Great Fall by Air
"Sublimely Grand"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Shortly before noon on the 13 June 1805, Lewis’s ears “were saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water,” which “soon began to make a roaring too tremendious to be mistaken for any cause short of the great falls of the Missouri.”
Bad ‘humered’ Island
Change of heart
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On the evening of 25 September 1804 after a negative encounter with the Lakota Sioux, the Corps camped on a nearby island Clark called “bad humered Island.” The next morning, the Indians had a change of heart.
Mapping Siouxland
A cartographic palimpsest
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The historic Map of Lewis and Clark’s Track Across the Western Portion of North America can fruitfully serve as a major palimpsest of American history as of the year in which it was created, 1810.
Clearwater Canoe Camp by Air
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Still sick and exhausted from their recent crossing of the Bitterroot Mountains, Lewis, Clark, and their crew arrived on 26 September 1805, at what they called Canoe Camp, on the Clearwater River.
Fort Clatsop Elk
Cervus canadensis roosevelti
by Greg Tollefson, Joseph A. Mussulman
Fort Clatsop’s location was chosen in part because, as some Clatsop Indians had advised the captains, there were more elk on the south side of the river than on the north. The subspecies found there was named in 1898 to honor Theodore Roosevelt.
A Natural History Let Down
Post-expedition reactions
by Joseph A. Mussulman
For nearly 100 years, the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s full contribution to natural science was underpublished and a disappointment to many scientists expecting to learn more about the natural history of the regions explored. When it came to the mosquito, these naturalists were doubly disappointed.
Defining ‘Squaw’
Shades of meaning
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Both of the captains referred to Charbonneau’s young wife as a squaw, usually spelling it with a post-vocalic /r/—”Squar.” In the 1980s a nationwide movement arose to extirpate squaw from general use, because of its worst connotations.
Western Redcedar
Thuja plicata
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The tree that caught the Corps’ attention west of today’s Lolo Pass was a species that is unique to the Far West of North America, the western redcedar.
Sage Grouse
Centrocercus urophasianus
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Mark Behan
“The Heath Cock or cock of the Plains is found in the Plains of Columbia and are in great abundance from the enterance of Lewis’s river to the mountains which pass the Columbia between the Great falls and Rapids of that river.” Thus we have a historic account of sage grouse range and abundance.
Clark’s Portage Route Survey
Measuring the falls and portage
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 17 June 1805, Clark and five men set out to determine the best portage route around the Great Falls of the Missouri. On the way up the river, he stopped to also measure the fall of the river and to map the falls.
F. Jay Haynes
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Many of the first photos in present Montana were by F. Jay Haynes. His story reflects the emergence of photography itself.
Colter’s Creek
Today's Potlatch River
by Joseph A. Mussulman
At 3 p.m. on 7 October 1805, the Corps loaded their five new dugout canoes–four large ones plus a small one “to look ahead”–and set out down the Clearwater River toward the Columbia and the Pacific beyond.
The Shoshone Caparison
Indian horse tack
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On the day before he left Camp Fortunate for the last time, Lewis described, with typical attention to detail, the usual caparison of the Shoshone Horse”–halter, saddle, and all other trappings.
The Grand Tower
Demons
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1673 French explorers Père Marquette and Louis Joliet listened to local Indians’ warnings about this place and erected a cross atop the ninety-foot-high rock to disempower the demons said to be lurking in the treacherous whirlpool at its base.
Defining ‘Savage’
Shades of meaning
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The word has two faces, one benign, the other brutish. The first springs from its etymological history, and represents the face of pure innocence. On the darker side, it is closer to the Latin cognate, saevus, meaning brutal, cruel, barbarous, violent and severe.
The Osages
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Kristopher K. Townsend
The Osage were experienced traders, exchanging horses and Indian slaves for French guns, knives, axes, kettles, and other metal objects. After the 1760s, the Osage adopted a new economic system of planting gardens in permanent villages, summer hunts in the plains, and fur-trapping in the winter.
Sheheke’s Delegation
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Sheheke’s diplomatic trip to Washington City and his difficult return home brought down the careers of at least two great leaders—himself, and Meriwether Lewis.
Fort Yates
Hunting party
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The Corps observed an Indian strategy for hunting game. As men on horseback herded pronghorns—”goats or Antelope,” Clark called them—into the river, boys swam among them and killed some with sticks, while others on shore shot them with bows and arrows.
Lewis’s Woodpecker
Melanerpes lewis
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 27 May 1806, while the expedition was camped in the vicinity of modern Kamiah, Idaho, on the Clearwater River, Lewis described a bird that was “new to science,” with his typical mixture of minute detail and genuine admiration.
The Clearwater Canoe Camp
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Still sick and exhausted from their recent crossing of the Bitterroot Mountains, Lewis, Clark, and their crew arrived on 26 September 1805, at what they called Canoe Camp, on the Clearwater River.
St. Joseph by Air
Bad medicine
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Pvt. Robert Frazer came close to being the expedition’s first fatality, for he was “verry Sick, struck with the Sun.” Probably his affliction would be diagnosed today as either heat exhaustion or sunstroke.
The Kansas River
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark was informed by one of the engagés who had traded along the Kansas that the river took its name from the Indians known as the Kanzes, or Kaw, nation which at that time dwelt on its banks.
St. Louis by Air
The western gate
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The expedition arrived on 7 December 1803, witnessed the transfer of Louisiana from Spain to the United States, and metaphorically passed through its western gate on 14 May 1804. They would not return until 23 September 1806.
Uniforms
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Each enlisted man, as well as the Captains, brought with them their dress uniforms which was worn for formal, official occasions such as dress reviews and parades, courts-martial, and funerals.
Jews Harps
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Although nobody can determine how this tiny musical instrument was named, we do know Lewis included them in his list of Indian gifts. Whitehouse records the merriment of the Yankton Sioux playing them and dancing.
Recruiting the Hunters
Finding soldiers that could hunt
by Joseph A. Mussulman
While traveling down the Ohio and wintering at Camp River Dubois, the captains searched for army recruits accustomed to the ways of the woods. If they were to survive, the expedition needed hunters.
Badgers
Taxidea taxus or brarow
by Joseph A. Mussulman
No doubt Lewis was preoccupied with the preservation process, for his entry was shorter. “It is a carniverous anamal . . . . it’s eye are small black and piercing.”
Thrapples
by Joseph A. MussulmanOf four Yankton Sioux, Sgt. Ordway wrote: “They had each of them a Thrapple made of a fresh buffelow hide dressed white with Some Small Shot in it and a little bunch of hair tied on it.”
Bighorn Sheep Encounters
by Joseph A. Mussulman
During a reconnaissance assignment eight miles up the Yellowstone River on 26 April 1805, Joseph Field became the first member of the Corps to glimpse a live bighorn sheep.
Pryor Mountains
Local lore and myths
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Pryor Creek begins in the Pryor Mountains 50 miles from its mouth, but coils into nearly 100 miles of creek bottom by the time it empties into the Yellowstone. Local lore maintains that Pryor traveled up this creek to those mountains.
Fort Mandan by Air
"most perfect harmony"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis attested that his men were “in excellent health and sperits, zealously attached to the enterprise, and anxious to proceed; not a whisper of murmur or discontent to be heard among them, but all act in unison, and with the most perfect harmony.”
Dugout Canoes
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Altogether, the men carved 15 dugout canoes. At Fort Mandan they hewed 6 from cottonwood logs. West of the Rockies they used ponderosa pine logs to craft five new canoes. On the Yellowstone, Clark made two small dugouts a few miles above today’s Billings.
The Manual of Arms
Basic maneuvers for every soldier
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The first major objective of basic training was mastery of the “Manual Exercise,” or manual of arms. It involved 27 commands from the sergeant, calling for 56 motions by the recruit. The single command, “Prime and Load,” involved fifteen motions.
Wolverines
Mystery mammal, Gulo gulo
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis referred to it as a “tyger cat.” Even Carl Linneaus, the father of modern taxonomy, couldn’t decide whether the wolverine belonged to the weasel family or the dog family.
The Lochsa River
Packer Meadows to Colt Killed Creek
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Snow was falling in the high country above them on the morning of 14 September 1805 when, after striking camp two miles downstream from Packer Meadows, the Corps slogged down the Glade Creek canyon through rain and sleet.
Western Meadowlark
Sturnella neglecta
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The species remained nameless until John James Audubon dubbed it neglecta because, he wrote in 1840, although “the existence of this species was known to the celebrated explorers of the west, Lewis and Clark . . . no one has since taken the least notice of it.”
The Sounding Horn
The "sounden horn"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In May of 1803, Lewis bought four “tin horns”—elsewhere called “Tin blowing Trumpets” or, by Sgt. Ordway, “Sounden [Sounding] horns.” They were likely used a signals between boats and on several occasions a horn was used to call in lost hunters.
Bighorn: Sheep or Goat?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
We confront the paradox that Elliott Coues pointed out in 1893—that Lewis and Clark had mistaken goats with wool … for sheep, and sheep without wool . . . for ibexes. Succeeding naturalists heightened the misunderstanding with invidious comparisons.
Sharp-tailed Grouse
Tympanuchus phasianellus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Elliott Coues, whose scientific interest centered on ornithology, in 1893 declared Lewis’s “Grouse or Prarie hen” to be the Oregon ruffed grouse, at that time classified as Bonasa umbellus sabinei (Ord) Coues.
Fort Peck Lake
Close calls
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The fourteenth of May was a day of close calls. With no time to reload their weapons, the grizzly bear hunters flung them aside and leaped over a twenty-foot-high bank into the river.
Walnut Street Prison and A.M.E. Church
Ironic juxtaposition
by Charles F. Reed, Joseph A. Mussulman
The irony inherent in the juxtaposition of the A.M.E. Church’s prime sanctuary as a symbol of fellowship and hope, with the Walnut Street Gaol (jail) as a place of isolation and despair, would not have been lost on any black person or white abolitionist.
The Bitterroot Plant
Lewisia rediviva
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Flathead Salish, Kutenai, Shoshoni, and Nez Perce people all regard the bitterroot with solemn reverence. No other root may be harvested until the elder women of the tribe have conducted the annual First Roots ceremony.
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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