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.
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.
Legacies
A virtual tour of the National Park Services’ modern replica of Fort Clatsop, prior to it accidentally burning down.
A rush job
December 10, 1805 marked the beginning of work on the Corps’ third winter garrison. They worked as fast as they could, and the daily, mostly intermittent rain showers punctuated by gale-lashed torrents, strengthened their resolve.
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.
The rainy weather, monotonous diet, and crisis over the lack of basic materials to carry out a routine tanning of hides for clothes must have eroded their mental and physical health.
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.
December 1805 to March 1806
During their stay at the Pacific coast, they hunt elk, make salt at the beach, and buy fish, wapato, and conical hats from the Clatsops and Kathlamets. When Clark leaves to get blubber from a beached whale, Sacagawea—who still hasn’t seen the ocean—insists she be included in his group. In the spring, they are eager to leave.
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.”
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.
They could come up with nothing in the way of hats that was as practical as the style perfected by the Clatsops and Chinooks.
Dubious interactions
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In mid-March the men stole a Clatsop canoe as recompense for Indians’ theft of 6 elk carcasses the men had shot, even though the tribe’s chief had already made restitution for the elk by giving the captains three free dogs.
18–21 August 1805
by Robert N. Bergantino
If, as suggested, Fortunate Camp was at 44°59’36″N, how did Lewis, after averaging four observations, come up with a latitude 24 minutes too far south?
November 1804 to April 1805
At the Knife River Villages, the winter of 1804–05 is brutally cold but the nearby Mandans and Hidatsas prove to be warm hosts. The captains hire trader Toussaint Charbonneau as an interpreter on the condition that he bring his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea. On 11 February, she gives birth to the couple’s first son, Jean Baptiste.
The creek where Coyote built his legendary house—today’s Neacoxie Creek—flows north to south bisecting nearly the length of the Clatsop Plain. A village at the estuary created by the ocean, Neacoxie Creek and the larger Necanicum River is Ne-ah-coxie Village. Nearby were three other Clatsop villages, and for a short time, a salt works built by soldiers from the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Kinnikinnick, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
by James L. Reveal, Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis and Clark sometimes called it kinnikinnick, sometimes sacacommis. At Fort Clatsop on 29 January 1806, he described this useful plant.
Aerial photographer Jim Wark and scholar Joseph A. Mussulman offer a fascinating new perspective on the Corps of Discovery’s historic journey. From Monticello in the east to Fort Clatsop on the Pacific Ocean, the entire 2004 book is provided online with updates by Mussulman.
Early in 1806 while wintering at Fort Clatsop, the last candles burned down, and Lewis described how they would make new candles out of tallow rendered from elk fat. This is the process.
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.”
Lewis's summary and recent insights
by Charles Jonkel, Joseph A. Mussulman
It wasn’t until May 1806 that Lewis had occasion to expand on his Fort Clatsop Grizzly Bear observations. This article adds recent insights and an interview with Charles Jonkel.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation
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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).