At Fort Clatsop near the Pacific Ocean, Lewis describes the elusive rodent presently named the mountain beaver. Drouillard and two enlisted men head up the Columbia to fish or trade for sturgeon and eulachon, and hunters are sent out in hopes to raise everyone’s “prospect for good living.”
Sturgeon and Eulachon
This morning we dispatched Drewyer and two men in our Indian canoe up the Columbia River to take sturgeon and Anchovey. or if they were unsuccessfull in fishing we directed them to purchase fish from the natives for which purpose we had furnished them with a few articles such as the natives are pleased with.
—Meriwether Lewis
Good Living
we hope shortly to replenish our stock of provision which is now reduced to a mere minnamum. we have th[r]ee days provision only in store and that of the most inferior dryed Elk a little tainted. a comfortable prospect for good living.
—Meriwether Lewis
Sewelel: Mountain Beaver
Mountain Beaver
Aplodontia rufa Rafinesque (1817)
Drawn from nature by John James Audubon; W. E. Hitchcock, lithographer; from Quadrapeds of North America (1845-48), Vol. III, No. 25, Plate CXXIII. Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
Sewelel is the Chinnook and Clatsop name for a small animal found in the timbered country on this coast. I have never seen the animal and can therefore discribe it only from the skin and a slight view which some of our hunters have obtained of the living animal . . . . I have indeavoured in many instances to make the indians sensible how anxious I was to obtain one of these animals entire, without being skined, and offered them considerable rewards to furnish me with one, but have not been able to make them comprehend me.
—Meriwether Lewis
Braro: Badger
the Braro so called by the French engages [engagés] is an animal of the civit genus and much resembles the common badgers . . . . the head is formed much like the common fist [feist] dog only that the skull is more convex.
—Meriwether Lewis
Weather Diary
aspect of the weather at rise
Wind at aspect of the weather at 4 OC1 P.M. Wind at 4 O’Clock P.M. fair after rain N E cloudy after fair & rain S at 9 A. M. it clouded up again.
—Meriwether Lewis[1]To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has omitted the “Day of ye Month” column and spelled out some abbreviations.
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.
Plan a trip related to February 26, 1806:
Fort Clatsop is a High Potential Historic Site along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail managed by the U.S. National Park Service. The site is managed by the Lewis and Clark National and State Historic Parks.
Notes
| ↑1 | To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has omitted the “Day of ye Month” column and spelled out some abbreviations. |
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