At the mouth of the Marias
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In the late afternoon of Sunday, 2 June 1805, the Corps of Discovery “came too on the Lard. side in a handsome bottom of small cottonwood timber opposite to the entrance of a very considerable river.” They now faced a crucial question: Which river was the Missouri?
Marias River decision
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The two captains “strolled out to the top of the hights in the fork of these rivers,” from which they had “an extensive and most inchanting view.”
"blustering point"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
It was “the most disagreeable time I have experienced,” Clark grumbled on 15 November 1805. “Confined on a tempiest Coast wet, where I can neither get out to hunt, return to a better Situation, or proceed on”
Lewis scouts ahead
At Decision Point, Clark bleeds Sacagawea. Lewis sets out to find the Great Falls of the Missouri. When he becomes too ill to continue, he makes a healing decoction from the local black chokecherry tree.
Caching the red pirogue
Boats are emptied, and cargo not critical is set aside to be cached. Shields impresses Lewis by fixing the air gun. After hiding the red pirogue on an island near Decision Point, Sacagawea becomes ill.
The southern fork
At Decision Point, the captains decide to follow the southern fork (the Missouri). The men all think the northern fork (the Marias) is correct. They pass the night in song and dance.
Return to Decision Point
Lewis names the river that he has been exploring Maria’s [Marias] River and speculates on its political and commercial value. Reunited at Decision Point, the captains attempt to reconcile their maps.
Lewis's narrow escape
Up the Marias River, Lewis and Windsor slip and nearly fall from a cliff. They find shelter from the rain in an old “Indian stick lodge”. At Decision Point, the men worry as they wait for Lewis’s return.
Both captains convinced
Lewis tries rafting the Marias River convinced it is a tributary of the Missouri. Clark follows the Teton River back to Decision Point. There, he says that he had explored the true Missouri River.
Scouting the rivers
Clark’s group kills three grizzlies, measures the Missouri’s width, and turns back. On the Marias River, Lewis sees the Sweet Grass Hills. At Decision Point, the men make leather and Goodrich fishes.
Decision Point explorations
Not knowing which is the Missouri, the captains take small groups on scouting trips up the Marias and Missouri rivers. At the Decision Point base camp, Joseph Field barely escapes an attacking grizzly bear.
Which river?
When viewing the Missouri and swollen Marias River from Decision Point, everyone is confused as to which is the main river. To help the captains decide, scouts are sent up each river.
Prunus virginiana var. melanocarpa
by Kristopher K. Townsend
This variety of the common chokecherry gave Lewis his decoction of simples and was the subject of his botanical scrutiny.
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.
Fort Mandan to the Marias River
by Harry W. Fritz
Near the mouth of the Knife, in late October 1804, the expedition settled down for the winter. After the river ice broke up, the keelboat left for St. Louis and six new dugout canoes headed the opposite direction, up the Missouri river.
Soapweed, Yucca glauca
by James L. Reveal, Joseph A. Mussulman
None of the expedition’s journalists made any note of yucca, although in writing of Lemhi-Shoshone Indian dress, Meriwether Lewis mentioned “a small cord of the silk-grass” which at least one scholar has interpreted as referring to the yucca.
Past the Great Divide
Lemhi River Valley, ID Having finally portaged all the baggage past the great divide, Lewis writes his last regular journal entry for the year, worried how they will cross the Bitterroot Mountains. Clark’s group moves to a Lemhi Shoshone village.
Searching for the Falls
Clark leads the boats up the Missouri past black bluffs and rattlesnakes nearly reaching present Fort Benton. Lewis has several adventures as he searches for the Great Falls of the Missouri.
Marias River arrival
A grizzly bear chases Drouillard and Charbonneau, and Lewis with several hunters take several hides to cover the iron-framed boat. After towing the boats 18 miles, they reach the mouth of the Marias River.
The mistake should never be made that the two men were friends. They were master and slave, owner and property, superior and inferior. As close as that relationship was for the many years and countless miles they were by each other’s side, for all the dangers and hardships they shared their relationship always was based on William as master and York as servant.
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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).