At the camp above the Falls of the Missouri, everyone is busy with various tasks except for the men hurt in yesterday’s hailstorm. Scattered baggage is collected and carried forward, and two men search for Clark’s compass lost in yesterday’s flash flood. The iron-framed boat’s cover is complete, and Lewis speculates about where they will spend the winter.
The Large Compass Found
by Yellowstone Public Radio[1]Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © … Continue reading
Iron Frame Without Cover
Upper Portage Camp Overlook. Photo © 2018 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Repair and Recovery
I Set 4 men to make new axeltrees & repare the Carrages, others to take the load across the run which had fallen & is about 3 feet water, men Complain of being Swore this day dull and lolling about
—William Clark
Moving Baggage Forward
we went after the remaining Baggage left in the plains . . . . we Set out with a load to the 6 mile Stake and return this evening.
—John Ordway
Finding Clark’s Compass
The two men dispatched in Serch of the articls lost yesterday returned and brought the Compass which they found in the mud & Stones near the mouth of the revein, no other articles found,
—William Clark
Upper Camp Tasks
We had a heavy dew this morning which is a remarkable event. Fraizer [Frazer] and Whitehouse still continue their opperation of sewing the skins together. I set Shields and gass to shaving bark and Fields continued to make the cross brases. Drewyer and myself rendered a considerable quantity of tallow and cooked.
—Meriwether Lewis
Iron Frame Cover
This evening the bark was shaved and the leather covering for the sections were also completed and I had them put into the water, in order to toughen the bark, and prepare the leather for sewing on the sections in the morning. it has taken 28 Elk skins and 4 Buffaloe skins to complete her. the cross bars are also finished this evening; we have therefore only the way strips now to obtain in order to complete the wood work, and this I fear will be a difficult task.
—Meriwether Lewis
Lewis Speculates
I begin to be extremely impatient to be off as the season is now waisting a pace nearly three months have now elapsed since we left Fort Mandan and not yet reached the Rocky Mountains I am therefore fully preswaded that we shall not reach Fort Mandan again this season if we even return from the ocean to the Snake [Lemhi Shoshone] Indians.
—Meriwether Lewis
Weather Diary
State of the thermometer at rise
Weather Wind at State of the thermometer at 4 OC. P.M. Weather Wind at 4 OC. P. M. State of river 49 [above 0] fair S. W 76 [above 0] fair S. W. raised 2 ¼ in. —Meriwether Lewis[2]To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has omitted the date column, merged the “State of the river” columns, and spelled out some abbreviations.
The Great Falls Portage is a High Potential Historic Site along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail managed by the U.S. National Park Service. It includes Sulpher Spring (open to the public) and Lower Portage Camp site (private land), and the Upper Portage Camp Overlook.
Notes
| ↑1 | Originally aired weekdays by Yellowstone Public Radio during the Bicentennial observance of 2003-2006. Narrated by Hal Hansen. Scripts by Whit Hansen and Ed Jacobson. Produced by Leni Holliman. © 2003 by Yellowstone Public Radio. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | To assist the reader, the editor of this web page has omitted the date column, merged the “State of the river” columns, and spelled out some abbreviations. |
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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.
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- Yellowstone Public Radio
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).