Discovering Lewis & Clark from the Air
Sometime during 1804, the year the Lewis and Clark expedition began,[1]Today, most consider the start of the expedition to be during 1803, the year Lewis started down the Ohio River.—ed. an event of similarly far-reaching import occurred in Yorkshire, England. A young inventor named George Cayley, of about the same age as the two American explorers, launched the first successful tests of a small glider, initiating the science of aerodynamics and demonstrating the practicality of fixed-wing flight. Those two synchronous threads of history have together in this book of aerial photographs of selected places along the routed trace by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and the Corps of Volunteers for North Western Discovery. It is my privilege to provide some commentary connecting these scenes with incidents from the history of the expeditions.
The book also rests on a fabric of less momentous experiences and coincidences. Over the year, having lived and traveled along the Lewis and Clark trail from childhood, I had developed an eye-level familiarity with much of its scenery. But it was not until the spring of 1999 that I saw much of it from a commercial airliner. Beginning on 14 May 1999, serving as a personal tour guide for Tom Arthur of Tampa, Florida, I studied the trail from St. Louis to the Rockies through the windows of his Pilatus Porter PC-6, cruising at a leisurely pace of eighty knots, a thousand feet or so above the Missouri, Jefferson, Beaverhead, and Bitterroot Rivers. The experience was exhilarating. In the span of four days I saw more than half of the official Lewis and Clark Trail[2]At the time of this writing, the trail as defined by National Historic Trails legislation began in St. Louis. Today, the start—in terms of the Lewis and Clark National Trail administered by the … Continue reading from an altitude that paralleled the geographical sensibility from which William Clark drew his remarkable maps.
Jim Wark
The photographer's preface
by Jim WarkJim Wark’s aerial photography is used extensively on this site to illustrate the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Written in his own words.
Jefferson’s Monticello
Source and paradigm
by Joseph A. MussulmanAfter some eight months of planning and discussion, President Thomas Jefferson handed his twenty-eight-year-old secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, a letter containing instructions for the conduct of one of the most significant undertakings in American history.
Harpers Ferry by Air
Wedge of history
by Joseph A. MussulmanHarpers Ferry’s tiny footprint belies the richness of its roles in American history—in industrialization, in commerce, and especially in the unfolding of the Civil War and the long struggle of African-Americans out of slavery.
Pittsburgh by Air
Golden triangle
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Monongahela River joins the Allegheny River at the apex of Pittsburgh’s “golden triangle” to form the river called Ohio—an Iroquois word meaning “big and beautiful.” After the Revolutionary War, Pittsburgh quickly grew into a gathering-place and jumping-off point.
Into West Virginia
The old frontier
Lewis and his skeleton crew of eleven men crossed the boundary between Pennsylvania and present-day West Virginia south of the river, and Pennsylvania and Ohio on the north. With that, they officially entered the Old Northwest.
Foggy Ohio Mornings
Weather report
by Joseph A. MussulmanThey camped for that night somewhere on the big island now known as Brown’s. When darkness fell the two canoes, which carried most of Lewis’s most valuable supplies, were still behind. “Ordered the trumpet to be sound[ed],” he wrote, “and they came up in a few minutes.”
Wheeling
"Point of Embarkation"
by Joseph A. MussulmanLewis had contracted with a wagoner to haul a substantial part of his baggage from Pittsburgh to Wheeling. In 1803 there were only a few thousand miles of decent wagon roads in the seventeen states, and Wheeling was the western terminus of one of the newest of them.
Cincinnati
Rest stop
by Joseph A. Mussulman“Finding my men much fatiegued with the labour to which they have been subjected in descending the river, I determined to recruit [rest] them by giving them a short respite of a few days, having now obtained the distance of five hundred miles.”
Louisville
Kentucky recruits
by Joseph A. MussulmanClark 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.
The Wabash River
Familiar water
by Joseph A. MussulmanLewis, 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 Mouth of the Ohio
Meeting of the waters
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn the evening of 14 November 1803, Lewis and Clark camped on the point between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. By now they had rowed, poled, dragged, and occasionally sailed their boats a total of 981 miles.
Tywappity Bottom
Early American settlement
“Arrived oposite three new habitation of some Americans who had settled under the Spanish government,” wrote Lewis on 22 November 1803. “This settlement is on a bottom called, Tywappety.” Major Amos Stoddard described the area in 1812.
The Grand Tower
Demons
by Joseph A. MussulmanIn 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.
Wood River by Air
Starting point
by Joseph A. MussulmanClark recorded: “Capts. Lewis & Clark wintered at the enterance of a Small river opposite the Mouth of Missouri Called wood River, where they formed their party, Composed of robust Young Backwoodsmen of Character.”
St. Charles
Petites Côtes
by Joseph A. MussulmanWith Captain Clark in sole command, the Corps of Volunteers for North Western Discovery left the mouth of Wood River on 14 May 1804. The flotilla was comprised of the barge and two pirogues. Clark and the men “proceeded on under a jentle brease,” bound for St. Charles.
La Charrette
Outpost
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 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.
The Osage River by Air
"Delightfull prospect"
by Joseph A. MussulmanAt 4 P.M. on 1 June 1804, the expedition arrived at the mouth of the Osage River, one of the major Indian fords on the lower Missouri.
Jefferson City
"Nightengale" song
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn Sunday, 3 June 1804, the expedition left its camp at the mouth of the Osage River and proceeded five miles upstream to the mouth of the Moreau River. There, Clark wrote, he and George Drouillard, “Saw much sign of war parties of Inds. having Crossed from the mouth of this Creek.”
Arrow Rock
Handsome spot
by Joseph A. MussulmanIt 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.
Driftwood Danger
An embarras (obstacle)
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Missouri spawned countless hazards such as a drift or raft of logs—an embarras, or “obstacle,” as the French engagés called it.
Malta Bend
"butifull prarie"
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 16 June 1804, Clark took a long walk through a “butifull extensive Prarie” to look for an old fort on Evans’s map, built by the French thereabouts more than eighty years earlier. The party spent three days here making new oars and ropes, and hunting.
The Kansas River by Air
"Great river of the Kansas"
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe expedition’s campsite from 26 June 1804 to 28 June 1804 was near the wooded point that protrudes at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers.
St. Joseph by Air
Bad medicine
by Joseph A. MussulmanPvt. 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.
Big Nemaha River
High ground
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Corps camped for the night of 11 July 1804 on “Newfound Island” to “rest the men who are much fatigued.” Five men explored the Big Nemaha River and climbed to the top of “a high artificial Noal”—an Indian burial site—to gain “an emence, extensive & pleasing prospect of the Countrey around.”
The Platte River
High road junction
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Corps of Discovery arrived at the mouth of the Platte on 21 July 1804, noting first of all that “the Current of This river Comes with great Velocity roleing its Sands into the Missouri, filling up its Bend….”
Omaha-Council Bluffs
Nobody home
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 23 July 1803, the captains sent Drouillard and Cruzatte to an Otoe Indian village to invite the chiefs to come hear of the change of national allegiance from Spain to the United States and to learn “the wishes of our Government to Cultivate friendship with them.”
Willard’s Bad Day
And a dreadful hurricane
by Joseph A. MussulmanWillard had to walk back 3 miles to get his tomahawk. On his way back, he dropped his rifle in the water, and he couldn’t find the weapon in the deep mud. On that same day, Clark took note of “much fallen timber, apparently the ravages of a dreadful haricane.”
The Little Sioux River
A froth of feathers
by Joseph A. MussulmanA highlight of 8 August 1804 was a profusion of feathers floating like a froth on the water. The feathers went on for three miles “in such quantities as to cover pretty generally sixty or seventy yards of the breadth of the river.”
Blue Lake Meander
Iowa meander
by Joseph A. MussulmanThis oxbow was once part of the main channel of the Missouri, but by 1804 the river had already cut it off, turning it into a lake “6 leagues [eighteen miles] around.”
Floyd’s Monument by Air
"Much Lamented"
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 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.”
Elk Point
Names
by Joseph A. MussulmanIn the vicinity of Elk Point, South Dakota, the captains found a variety of unfamiliar minerals, including what Clark believed were arsenic and cobalt. “Capt. Lewis in proveing the quality of those minerals was near poisoning himself by the fumes & taste.”
Spirit Mound by Air
"Unusual spirits"
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 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.
Yankton by Air
Peace parley
by Joseph A. MussulmanHere they “formed a camp in a Butifull Plain,” erected a flagpole, ran up their large flag, and settled in to wait for the Sioux, whom they had invited to meet with them. On August 30, seventy-five Sioux men of the Yankton tribe ceremoniously entered the expedition’s camp, eager to parley.
Sandbar Hazards
Knotty problem
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe task of piloting the expedition’s boats efficiently through the Missouri’s windings and blind leads was the principal responsibility of Pierre Cruzatte who, as a riverman, earned the respect and confidence of every member of the party.
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.
Fort Randall Dam
Wolf tricks
by Joseph A. MussulmanHere, Sergeant Gass went out with one of the hunters to retrieve the meat and hide of a buffalo the man killed the previous evening. The hunter had left his hat on the carcass “to keep off the vermin and beasts of prey,” apparently believing the scent of a human would scare them away”
Big Bend of the Missouri by Air
Around the bend
by Joseph A. MussulmanThey 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.
Pierre by Air
Standoff
by Joseph A. MussulmanLewis and Clark first met the Teton Sioux on 25 September 1804. One of Jefferson’s primary political objectives for the expedition was to create a peace treaty and trade agreement them, the most potent military and economic force on the lower Missouri.
Bad ‘humered’ Island
Change of heart
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 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.
Fort Yates
Hunting party
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe 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.
Bismarck and Mandan
The main attraction
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Corps of Discovery arrived in the vicinity on 20 October 1804, having worked their way some 1,450 miles up the Missouri in 155 days. That day, wildlife was the main attraction.
The Knife River Villages
Marketplace
by Joseph A. MussulmanReaching the mouth of the Knife River on 27 October 1804, the expedition arrived in the midst of a major agricultural center and marketplace for a huge mid-continental region. The five permanent earth lodge communities there offered a panorama of contemporary Indian life.
Fort Mandan by Air
"most perfect harmony"
by Joseph A. MussulmanLewis 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.”
Coal Mines
Brilliant blaze
by Joseph A. MussulmanLewis and Clark could never have imagined a pit like the one in this photograph. Opened in 1997, it is about twelve miles east of the Missouri River and sixty miles north of Bismarck, North Dakota. In the background is a postglacial tarn called Coal Lake.
Yellowstone Mouth by Air
"Long wished for spot"
by Joseph A. Mussulman“I ascended the hills,” Lewis wrote, “from whence I had a most pleasing view of the country, particularly of the wide and fertile vallies formed by the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers.”
Fort Union
Upper Missouri developers
by Joseph A. MussulmanThis is where, in 1828, John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company built Fort Union, which remained the axis of Indian-American commerce on the Upper Missouri until the late 1860s.
Culbertson, Montana
Abundance
by Joseph A. MussulmanSomewhere in this vicinity, on 29 April 1805, Lewis shot his first grizzly bear and promptly began his detailed study of the fascinating species. Other game was astonishingly abundant, too.
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.”
Fort Peck Dam
Varied landscape
by Joseph A. Mussulman“The countrey on the North Side of the Missouri is one of the handsomest plains we have yet Seen on the river,” Clark declared. Lewis described the ragged badlands on the south side as “high broken hills….”
Fort Peck Lake
Close calls
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe 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.
The Musselshell River
Sharp curve
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 19 May 1805, the expedition camped on the east side of the neck, or “gouge,” in the Missouri River where the Musselshell River joins it. It had been an exhausting day.
Charles M. Russell NWR
Missouri Breaks
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe wind against them again on 25 May 1805, the Corps had to tow their boats with ropes. Lewis observed, “the water run with great violence, and compelled us in some instances to double our force in order to get a perorogue or canoe by them.”
The “Deserts of America”
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe 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.”
The Grand Natural Wall
"walls of tolerable workmanship"
by Joseph A. Mussulman“As we passed on it seemed as if those seens of visionary inchantment would never have an end; for here it is too that nature presents to the view of the traveler vast ranges of walls of tolerable workmanship.”
The White Cliffs
by Joseph A. MussulmanUnder 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.
Citadel Rock
"Steep black rock"
by Joseph A. MussulmanClark remarked on this “high Steep black rock riseing from the waters edge” as they passed it on 31 May 1805, but he did not give it a name. Citadel Rock, so called during the steamboat era for its fortress-like presence, was an igneous intrusion into a layer of sandstone.
Decision Point by Air
At the mouth of the Marias
by Joseph A. MussulmanIn 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?
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.”
The Great Fall by Air
"Sublimely Grand"
by Joseph A. MussulmanShortly 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.”
Rainbow Falls by Air
"Pleasingly beautifull"
by Joseph A. MussulmanAfter 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 Sun River by Air
"Curious adventures"
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe day’s “succession of curious adventures wore the impression on my mind of inchantment,” he mused. “It now seemed to me that all the beasts of the neighbourhood had made a league to distroy me.”
Crooked Falls by Air
A "thousand conjectures"
by Joseph A. MussulmanAfter passing “one continued rappid and three small cascades of abut for or five feet each,” Lewis “arrived at a fall of about 19 feet,” which he suitably named “the crooked falls” and proceeded to describe its geometry.
Lower Portage Camp
Good news, bad news
by Joseph A. MussulmanBy the evening of 15 June 1805, Clark had gotten the canoes and the white perogue as close to the Great Falls as possible, and the next afternoon Lewis joined him at the “lower portage camp,” a mile below the mouth of Belt Creek.
Oxbow Bend
Land and water
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 19 July 1805, Lewis ‘doubled’ around Oxbow Bend, then 30 feet lower and maybe one-fourth as wide as it is today. Behind the river’s curve, an ancient landmark on the Indian Old North Trail, still stands out.
Gates of the Mountains by Air
"Gloomy aspect"
by Joseph A. Mussulman“The river appears to have forced it’s way through this immence body of solid rock for the distance of 5-3/4 miles,” Lewis observed.
The Headwaters by Air
Essential point
by Joseph A. MussulmanUpon the Corps’s arrival at this confluence on 25 July 1805, Lewis quickly recognized it as “an essential point in the geography of this western part of the Continent.”
The Jefferson River
Third gap
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn the first of 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.”
The Tobacco Root Mountains
Beautiful prairies
by Joseph A. Mussulman“We proceeded on and passed a large beautiful bottom,” wrote Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse on 2 August 1805, “and Prairies lying on both sides of the River.” On each side of the valley, Sergeant Gass observed, “there is a high range of mountains . . . with some spots of snow on their tops.”
The Beaverhead River
Home ground
by Joseph A. MussulmanWith what satisfaction and relief Lewis must have written, on 8 August 1805: “The Indian woman [Sacagawea] recognized the point of a high plain to our right which she informed us was not very distant from the summer retreat of her nation.”
Fortunate Camp
Western road
by Joseph A. MussulmanToday the confluence of the Beaverhead River and Horse Prairie Creek is submerged at left of the large island (photo center) in Clark Canyon reservoir, beneath eighty feet of water when the reservoir is full.
Lemhi Pass by Air
Division point
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe 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.
The Lemhi Valley
Hospitable people
by Joseph A. MussulmanLewis and his four companions crossed over the dividing ridge on the west side of the upper Missouri River basin and the Columbia drainage, then descended a dusty, well-traveled Indian road for some miles down into a “handsome little valley” among the sources of the Columbia River basin.
The Salmon River by Air
"Gloomey Picture"
by Joseph A. MussulmanIn the four days between 21 and 24 August 1805, Clark explored fifty-two miles down the Salmon River (he named it Lewis’s River) from today’s North Fork, Idaho. All he saw was a continuous series of rapids.
Lost Trail Pass
Uncertainty
by Joseph A. MussulmanWhere did they camp? This was not the only time Toby was unsure of himself, nor that the captains were temporarily baffled, but it is perhaps the one that most readily invites study and discussion.
Travelers’ Rest by Air
Turning point
by Joseph A. MussulmanFor three days the Corps rested here, gathering strength for the arduous 150-mile trek across the Bitterroot Mountains. The campsite was about two-thirds down in the photo, among the cottonwoods that shelter Lolo Creek.
The Bitterroots by Air
"Tremendious Mountanes"
by Joseph A. Mussulman“I have been wet and as cold in every part as I ever was in my life,” Clark complained. “Indeed I was at one time fearfull my feet would freeze in the thin mockersons which I wore.”
Weippe Prairie by Air
"Tryumph"
by Joseph A. MussulmanFor countless generations, Weippe Prairie (prounouced WEE-yipe), like Travelers’ Rest, was a major node in the transportation, trade, and social networks of the Rocky Mountain West.
Clearwater Canoe Camp by Air
by Joseph A. MussulmanStill 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.
Colter’s Creek
Today's Potlatch River
by Joseph A. MussulmanAt 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.
Meeting the Snake
Water color
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Corps’ four-day trip to this point from Canoe Camp on the Clearwater in their five crowded dugouts was a taste of things to come.
Tucannon and Palouse Rivers
"rugid rocks"
by Joseph A. MussulmanNow they entered a four-mile-long torrent, its climax a “narrows or narrow rapid” through which a channel 25 yards wide was confined between “rugid rocks” for a solid mile and a half.
Snake River Rapids
"Stuk fast"
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe boating didn’t improve on 14 October 1805. At the head of a particularly bad three-mile-long rapid, three canoes “Stuk fast for some time . . . and one Struk a rock in the worst part.”
Meeting the Columbia
A welcoming fanfare
by Joseph A. MussulmanIn the afternoon of 16 October 1805, the expedition portaged around “the last bad rapid as the Indians Sign to us”–the last on the Snake River, that is–and soon arrived at the “Great River of the West,” the Columbia.
Columbia River near Blalock
Greatest chief
by Joseph A. MussulmanThis scene’s most arresting feature is still the “high mountain of emence hight covered with Snow” on the photo’s horizon. Clark mistook it for Mount St. Helens. The Indians called the mountain Pahtoe. Since 1838 it has been known as Mount Adams.
Miller Island
River of the falls
by Joseph A. MussulmanNear the west end of the island, they passed a sizeable tributary local Indians called To war ne hi ooks. The journalists left us no hint that the word they heard as Towarnehiooks was a Chinookan expression meaning “enemies.”
The Dalles
Through the Narrows
by Joseph A. MussulmanThere 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.
Beacon Rock by Air
Tidewater mark
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 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.
Bonneville Dam
Through the Narrows
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Bonneville Dam, completed in 1938, raised the level of this part of the Columbia seventy-two feet and permanently obliterated the place Lewis and Clark called the “Great Shute.”
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge
Horrid noise
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn the night of 4 November 1805 the expedition camped near a pond now called Post Office Lake. The next morning a weary, groggy Clark complained that he “could not Sleep for the noise” made by the numerous waterfowl.
Cascade Mountains at Dawn
by Joseph A. MussulmanIn 1838, a patriotic citizen started a campaign to change the Cascade Mountains into the “Presidential Range.” This was to include renaming Mount Hood after John Adams.
The Columbia River Estuary
"Great joy"
by Joseph A. MussulmanWhen the sky cleared briefly at about noon on 7 November 1805, a rising cheer may have startled the myriad waterfowl in the area, for Clark wrote, “we are in view of the opening of the Ocian, which Creates great joy.”
Grays Bay
Shallow bay
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn the morning of 8 November 1805, the Corps’ flotilla entered a “nitch” they called Shallow Bay and paused for their midday meal near the remains of an Indian village with “great numbers of flees which [we] treated with the greatest caution and distance.”
Point Ellice
"blustering point"
by Joseph A. MussulmanIt 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”
Cape Disappointment
"This Emence Ocian"
by Joseph A. MussulmanPrivate Whitehouse thought his captains had named Cape Disappointment “on account of not finding Vessells there,” but it had received the name years earlier.
Long Beach
Mementos
by Joseph A. MussulmanClark’s party continued north along the beach for four miles, to the vicinity of today’s Long Beach, Washington. Here Clark memorialized their first visit to the Pacific Ocean by marking his name and the date on a small pine tree.
The Lewis and Clark River
Coast Range winter
by Joseph A. MussulmanDuring their time at the coast, the Corps saw only six sunny days; the rest brought clouds, fog, rain, and a little snow. Fifty-three were partly clear. That’s a normal winter on the west slopes of the Coast Range.
The Salt Works by Air
Seaside, Oregon
by Joseph A. MussulmanHere 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.
Tillamook Head by Air
Delightful view
by Joseph A. MussulmanAfter two hours of “labour and fatigue,” at one point drawing themselves up by bushes and roots, they reached the summit of Bald Mountain. Clark’s description paraphrased by Biddle states, “Here one of the most delightful views in nature presents itself.”
Ecola
Whale tale
by Joseph A. MussulmanBy 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.
Finding the Willamette
Filling in the blank
by Joseph A. MussulmanIslands had hidden it from view on the westbound trip, but early on 2 April 1806 some Indians visiting their camp happened to mention it. Clark picked six of his soldiers, hired an Indian guide, and went back to see it.
The Salmon and Snake Villages
Side trip
by Joseph A. MussulmanWhen the captains saw Nez Perces with several fresh chinook salmon, “fat and fine,” which the Indians said came from “Lewis’s River,” known today as the Salmon River, they dispatched Sgt. John Ordway and two privates to buy some.
The Blackfoot River by Air
Prairie of the knobs
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 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.
Lewis and Clark Pass by Air
Dividing ridge
by Joseph A. MussulmanLewis and Clark Pass is six miles north of Rogers Pass, where Montana Highway 200 crosses the Continental Divide. The concept of the continental divide, and the term itself, would emerge only after another fifty years of western exploration.
Bozeman Pass
Of great service
by Joseph A. MussulmanClark reported, “the indian woman who has been of great Service to me as a pilot through this Country recommends a gap in the mountain more South which I shall cross.” This was one of the few times Sacagawea acted as the guide.
Yellowstone Canoe Camp by Air
Horse thieves
by Joseph A. MussulmanClark’s party made camp at today’s Park City, Montana, and settled in to build the new canoes and attend to other business. While a few of the men took turns with the three axes they had along, some of the rest, being nearly naked, made elk- and deer-skin clothing.
Camp Disappointment by Air
by Joseph A. MussulmanOn 19 July 1806 Lewis intersected the Marias River six miles above the point where he had ended his exploration of its lower reaches the previous spring. He and his party now continued northwest along the Marias reaching its most northern point.
Pryor Creek
Ill-fated mission
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe 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.
Crow Country
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe Crows called themselves Absalookas, sometimes heard as Absarokas, or “Children of the Large-beaked Bird.”
Pompeys Pillar by Air
Remarkable rock
by Joseph A. MussulmanFor countless generations this conspicuous sandstone formation had been a distinctive feature in the homeland of the Crows.
Fight on the Two Medicine
An "accedental interview"
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe 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.
The Yellowstone Badlands
by Joseph A. MussulmanAround midday he passed the mouth of a tributary “40 yards wid Shallow and muddy,” the banks of which can be faintly discerned near the horizon in the picture, and identified it as the stream the Mandan chief Sheheke had called Oak-tar-pon-er.
St. Louis by Air
The western gate
by Joseph A. MussulmanThe 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.
Notes
↑1 | Today, most consider the start of the expedition to be during 1803, the year Lewis started down the Ohio River.—ed. |
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↑2 | At the time of this writing, the trail as defined by National Historic Trails legislation began in St. Louis. Today, the start—in terms of the Lewis and Clark National Trail administered by the U.S. National Park Service—begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.—ed. |
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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.