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
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.
Portraits of William Clark
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Four portraits and one statue by five different artists show a diverse interpretation of the likeness of William Clark.
Indigenous Forestry
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Archaeological evidence indicates that deliberate burning of forests and fields has been occurring on the North American continent for at least the past 10,000 to 20,000 years.
Clark’s Columbia River Maps
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The Freeman-Custis Expedition
The "Grand Excursion"
by Dan Flores, Joseph A. Mussulman
Narrated in both English and Spanish, Daniel Flores tells the story of a parallel, southern exploration now nearly forgotten.
Lead Powder Kegs
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis ordered 52 lead canisters specially made to carry and protect the expedition’s gunpowder.
Pompeys Pillar
Pompy's Tower
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 25 July 1806, Clark and his contingent of nine men, plus York, Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and little Jean Baptiste, arrived at “a remarkable rock Situated in an extensive bottom, on the Star[boar]d. [south] Side of the river.”
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.”
Charbonneau’s Prayer
Accident in the white pirogue
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Charbonneau’s ultimate test of faith came as a boatman, on a day when he was at the helm of the white pirogue. After a sudden gust of wind, he panicked and turned the boat sideways to the wind, turning the boat over.
Little Gate of the Mountain
Lewis's "second grand chain"
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Before arriving at the three forks of the Missouri, Whitehouse wrote that they “passed some rough rockey hills, which we expect from the account we have from the Indian Woman that is with us, to be the commencement of the Second chain of the Rockey Mountains.
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.”
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”
Common and Fallow Deer
Common meanings and tangled names
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis and Clark used the word fallow mainly in reference to the color of the Virginia whitetail. Few, probably, had ever seen a picture of a European fallow deer, and may have been unaware that this species’ distinctive antlers were not round like those of indigenous North American deer.
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?
The Sun River by Air
"Curious adventures"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The 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.”
The Portage Route
Around the Falls of the Missouri
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The shuttling of all the baggage and six canoes across the prairie to the upper portage camp opposite White Bear Islands began on 21 June 1805 and was completed on 2 July 1805. All in all, it was one of the most grueling undertakings on the entire expedition.
Yucca
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.
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.
Apsáalooke (Crow) Signs
Smoke signals a discovery
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“This smoke must be raisd. by the Crow Indians in that direction as a Signal for us, or other bands. I think it most probable that they have discovered our trail.”
The Bears Paw Mountains
And the Sweet Grass Hills
by Joseph A. Mussulman
By his 5 June 1805 estimate, Meriwether Lewis was 38 miles up the Marias River from the expedition’s camp on the Missouri. To the northeast, he identified the Bears Paw Mountains and Sweet Grass Hills.
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.
Camp Disappointment
The northernmost extent
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1806, Lewis, Drouillard, Joe Field, and Reubin Field made a second excursion up the Marias, this time on horseback. The four men reached the northernmost point of the Expedition’s exploration on 22 July 1806, camping on the south side of today’s Cut Bank Creek.
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.
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.”
Crane Fly
Tipula abdominalis
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 27 December 1805, Clark wrote: “Musquetors to day, or an insect So much the Size Shape and appearance of a Musquetor that we Could observe no kind of difference.”
The Jefferson River
Third gap
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 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 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.
The Expedition’s Flags
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The expedition’s supplies included an unknown number of American flags. Those that the journals refer to only as being “of second size,” and “of third size,” were given to selected Indian leaders as tokens of peace.
Clark’s Military Rank
An elephant on the trail
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis had assured Clark that their situations would be identical in every respect, beginning with rank. The fact that Clark was actually a lieutenant was a secret kept throughout the expedition.
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.
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.
Thomas Howard
Private
by Barbara Fifer, Joseph A. Mussulman
On 23 January 1806, Lewis dispatched Howard and Werner to the Salt Camp on the ocean beach, to bring back a supply of salt. When they had not returned by the 26th, Lewis feared they had gotten lost.
Larocque at Fort Mandan
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In the fall of 1804, Larocque’s job was to take a supply of North West Company merchandise to the Mandan and Hidatsa villages and trade for furs. While there, he asked the captains if he could join the expedition.
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.”
Profile Portraiture
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1802 the British-born Philadelphian, John Isaac Hawkins (1772-1805)5, invented a new kind of copy machine, a pantograph with which a person could produce a miniature copy of his or her profile through direct contact. He called it a physiognotrace.
Edgar S. Paxson
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Edgar Paxson captured the essence of the fast-disappearing Old West as he personally experienced it. In 1895, he painted “Over the Trail of Lewis and Clark,” his first known scene from that episode in western history.
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.”
Blue Grouse
Dendragapus obscurus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“this bird is fully a third larger than the common phesant of the Atlantic states. it’s form is much the same. it is booted nearly to the toes and the male has not the tufts of long black feathers on the sides of the neck which are so conspicuous in those of the Atlantic.”
Deists in the ‘Wilderness’
by Joseph A. Mussulman
As deists in the ‘wilderness,’ Lewis and Clark simply wanted to observe and admire the surrounding world and learn to understand the relationships that held it together.
Church in St. Charles
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On the first Sunday after leaving Camp River Dubois, Joseph Whitehouse wrote that some of the party “went to church, which the french call Mass, and Saw their way of performing &c.”
Ruffed Grouse
Bonasa umbellus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
At Fort Clatsop on 5 February 1806, Reubin Field returned from a hunt with “a phesant which differed but little from those common to the Atlantic states.”
Big Hole to Three Forks
Sacagawea points to home
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Sacagawea informed Clark that “she had been in this plain frequently and knew it well,” that the creek they were following was a branch of the Big Hole River, and that “when we assended the higher part of the plain we would discover a gap in the mountains”
Smoking
Smoking on the expedition
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Kristopher K. Townsend
The captains would have to ration their dwindling supplies, and the smokers would have to extend their tobacco with leaves and inner bark from local plants and trees. The captains would also learn the endless variety of ceremonies practiced when sharing a pipe the People they met.
Naming Places
Lewis and Clark's Montanan names
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis and Clark’s name “Travelers Rest” was too site-specific to simultaneously function equitably with the creek, the peak, the hot springs, the pass, and all the rest. By the time settlers began moving into the region, the old name was basically meaningless.
Ebenezer Tuttle
Private
by Barbara Fifer, Joseph A. Mussulman
His name appears only one time, when he is listed as a member of Corporal Warfington’s detachment bringing the keelboat back from Fort Mandan. He may not have even made it that far.
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.
Lolo Stories
Endless possibilities
by Joseph A. Mussulman
One amateur historian averred that it was “a corruption of the French name Le Louis, given to the stream and pass by early French trappers” in honor of Meriwether Lewis. Another claimed that the mystery [wo]man was named after “Lolo [i.e., Lola] Montez, a noted Spanish beauty.”
Lost Hunters
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Every hunter, after following the land instead of the river, had to somehow end his day within sight or sound of the party’s camp at a location which no one could have known in advance. They were not always successful.
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 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.”
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.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance
with additional funding from the following:
