Soundscapes

The Lewis and Clark Expedition has been measured in days, miles and dollars. Its achievements have been enumerated, its antecedents and consequences analyzed and quantified, its discoveries tallied and named, its deeds and dangers sorted and counted. These are the facts of the matter, and our principal link with the past, to which they lend substance, shape and significance. But they are bereft of the human senses; they are, for one thing, soundless.

Sounds are elemental signs of life. They reach the feelings directly. “Sounds thicken the sensory stew of our lives,” writes Diane Ackerman in A Natural History of the Senses, “and we depend on them to help us interpret, communicate with, and express the world around us.”^[2]Diane Ackerman. A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 176.

By “listening” to the journals of Lewis and Clark, we can hear the stew simmering. We can perceive—if but faintly through the crescendo of two centuries of noise pollution—some of the more resonant facets of the expedition’s sonic qualities.

If landforms comprise the landscape of a scene, then the sonorous details of a place can be called its soundscape. A soundscape may consist of a group of distinct but often interlocking acoustic bio-spectrums, or sound keys peculiar to a given locale.^[3]Bernard L. Krause, “Bio-Acoustics: Habitat Ambience and Ecological Balance,” Whole Earth Review, no. 57 (Winter, 1987), 14. Each sound key has a characteristic structure and orchestration, like the movement of a symphony.

The Corps’ Soundscape

The soundscape of the Lewis and Clark Expedition had two aspects. One was the tumult of natural sound keys reaching from coast to coast, each changing its tune by the hour, the day, the lunar cycle, and the season. The other was the sound key created by the Corps itself—the human hubbub that crept across the continent.

The relatively uncomplicated sound key of the expedition itself can readily be imagined. Think of the intricately woven, undulating melodies, rhythms and assorted timbres of thirty or forty men’s voices; the conversations, mutterings, commands, exclamations, and the safety-valve outbursts of oaths, songs and laughter; the obbligato of a woman’s and an infant’s voice threaded through the fabric of the male chorus; the secret night-noises of all those people, that only the insomniacs and the sentries could hear. Add the percussive punctuations of the hunters’ guns, near and far; the “sounden horn” calls to missing hunters; axes and saws hewing firewood or canoes; the dog Seaman‘s greetings and warnings; the circadian clatter of kettles at mess. And so on, in diminishing but significant detail. This day-long ostinato repeated itself 863 times, like a musical theme.

Nature’s Soundscape

The natural soundscape of the expedition’s trail is harder to reconstruct. Today, even the remotest parts of it are suffused with noises that mask, pollute and defile nature’s voices. Few places on earth are beyond earshot of the monotonous hum of electric-powered appliances. Fewer still are secure from the rumble of the internal combustion engine, that engulfs the entire spectrum from sub-audible sounds—the ones we can only feel—to the upper threshold of human perception.

Nevertheless, there are numerous clues in the expedition’s journals to stimulate our aural imaginations. On one end of the natural sound spectrum, close up, high and soft, the sound key was often—all too often, according to the journalists—pierced by the dreaded soprano whine of the mosquito, undulating like a tiny moan, or like a capsule preview of the banshee sirens of modern urban life. The ensemble blended the mezzo-soprano motif of the hoot-owl, the staccato yelp of the coyote, and the melodious howl of the wolf, punctuated by the rim-shot “flacking” of beavers‘ tails on the water.

Betimes the soundscape featured the clarion fanfare of the Western meadowlark, or the “Nightingale” (possibly a hermit thrush) that sang throughout a fair June night in 1804.^[4]See Clark’s ‘Nightingale’. It included the tail-twisting chatter of the prairie dogs, the hoarse voice of the frog, and the clackety-rasp of grasshoppers scraping the summer sun from their wing-covers (or was that a rattlesnake?). It was suffused with cicadas simmering in the cottonwood trees, and chickadees monotonously rehearsing their two-note ditty. It hit a high note with soprano gryllidae rubbing body parts together in breathless shrill duets, celebrating the day’s demise like one huge polyphonic cricket, soon chilled to sleep.

Roars and Bellows

At the far end of the spectrum, low and loud, were the spine-chilling roar of the grizzly and the hoarse bellowing of buffalo bulls in rut. In the vicinity of White Bear Islands on the Missouri, on July 11, 1806, the latter—among a herd Lewis estimated at 10,000 head!—could be heard for miles; the horses were “much allarmed.” A few days later, over on the Yellowstone near Pompeys Pillar, Clark complained that the buffalo kept up “Such a grunting nois which is very loud and disagreeable Sound that we are compelled to Scear them away before we can Sleep.”^[5]July 25, 1806; Gary Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, (8 Volumes: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986-93), 8:226.

President Jefferson had instructed Lewis to notice “the animals of the country generally, & especially those not known in the U.S.,” and the journalists’ descriptions of birds were often painstakingly detailed, complete even to their distinguishing “notes.” But natural sounds are difficult to translate into words, beyond the simplest, most generalized onomatopoeia. At times the captains found the translation easy, as with the magpie—”twait twait twait” or “tah, tah, tah.” Similarly imitable were the calls of the least tern: “it has two notes one like the squaking of a small pig only on reather a high kee [key], and the other kit´-tee´-kit´tee´- as near as letters can express the sound.”^[6]Lewis wrote of the magpie on September 17, 1804. The tern turned up on August 5, 1804; Moulton, 2:451. In the case of the common poorwill, however, it is difficult—even allowing for regional variations in avian dialect—to account for the difference between what Lewis and the Indians heard (“at-tah-to’-nah'”) and Roger Tory Peterson’s modern perception (“poor-will or poor-jill”).^[7]Lewis, October 16. 1804; Moulton, 3:178; Peterson, A Field Guide to Western Birds (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), 214: “a loud, repeated poor-will or poor-jill.” Moreover, Lewis perceived the call of the pinyon jay as “char´âh, char âh´,” whereas Peterson hears a “high nasal cawing, kaa-eh, karn-eh (descending inflection)” and other contemporary ornithologists hear “queh, queh, queh.”^[8]August 1, 1805; Moulton, 5:25; Peterson, 256. See also Chandler S. Robbins, Bertel Bruun, and Herbert S. Zim, Birds of North America (New York: Golden Press, 1966), 208.

Lewis was temporarily stumped when it came to transcribing the “note” of the “small” tundra swan heard near Fort Clatsop early in March 1806. “[It] cannot be justly immetated by the sound of letters nor do I know any sounds with which a comparison would be pertinent.” Nonetheless, he yielded to a compulsion to try: “it begins with a kind of whistleing sound and terminates in a round full note which is reather louder than the whistleing, or former part; this note is as loud as that of the large [trumpeter] swan.”^[9]March 9, 1806; Moulton 6:395. Efforts to describe bird calls have produced some eloquent musical criticism. The Audubon Society of North American Birds describes the “note” of the … Continue reading

Comparisons with familiar sounds often sufficed in lieu of translations. On April 13, 1805, Clark heard “a Gange of brant pass . . . . a voice much like that of a goos & finer &c.” Two days later, Lewis “heard the frogs crying for the first time this season; their note was the same with that of the small frogs which are common to the lagoons and swam[p]s of the U States.”^[10]Moulton; 4:33 and 4:41.

Natural sounds and human activities were found to be related on levels that, regrettably, are irrelevant to modern urbanites: On May 26, 1806, the men noticed that “the dove is cooing which is the signal as the indians informs us of the approach of the salmon.” Occasionally a “scientific” observation of birdsong is tinged with pleasure. Near the mouth of the Marias River the curlew, Lewis wrote, “sings very sweetly, has several shrill soft notes reather of the plaintive order which it frequently repeats and varies,…these larks as I shall call them add much to the gayety and cheerfullness of the scene.”^[11]June 4, 1805; Moulton, 4:254. One sunny morning a few days later the birds “appeared to be very gay and sung most inchantingly; . . . . the brown thrush, Robbin, turtle dove, linnit goaldfinch, the large and small blackbird, wren and several other birds of less note.”^[12]Lewis, June 8, 1805; Moulton, 4:265. Was he punning? Perhaps he was referring to various corvidae such as the magpie, or his co-captain’s namesake nutcracker, whose voices are, musically … Continue reading Under “remarks” for the month of March 1806, one of the captains noted that “the birds were singing very agreably this morning particularly the common robin”—no doubt a harbinger of relief from relentless rain. Four months later, returning to the White Bear Islands, Lewis basked in the beauty of a rain-freshened July morning (the 11th): “the air was pleasant and a vast assemblage of little birds which croud to the groves on the river sung most enchantingly.”

Not all bird calls were cheery. On the fifth of November 1805, Clark complained: “I [s]lept but verry little last night for the noise Kept dureing the whole of the night by the Swans, Geese, white & Grey Brant Ducks &c. on a Small Sand Island close under the Lard. Side; they were emensely noumerous, and their noise horid.”

Drouillard’s Gobbling Snake

Certain of the events in the natural soundscapes along the expedition’s route were unexplainable. Near the present town of Miami, Missouri, on June 6, 1804, George Drouillard heard “a remarkable Snake inhabiting a Small lake 5 ms. below which gobbles like a Turkey & may be herd Several Miles.” There is no further comment from the journalists, and we expect none. The human mind has always populated dark and dangerous places with powerful spirits and frightful monsters.

Indian Voices

Intermittently, the natural soundscape would be overlaid with a complementary human sound key centering upon an Indian village. As the captains, obedient to President Jefferson’s instructions, transcribed the babel of native tongues into vocabularies, they also observed the timbres and tempos of the diverse Indian languages. Clark observed that the Lemhi Shoshones had “a gugling kind of languaje Spoken much thro the Throught.”^[13]Clark, September 5, 1805; Moulton, 5:188. At the Great Narrows of the Columbia on October 27, 1805, Clark noticed that “Common to all the flat head Bands which we have passed on the river, all have the clucking tone anexed.” The singing and drumming of Indian celebrations added a strident chord to the setting, occasionally keeping a weary explorer awake.^[14]Lewis, August 13, 1805: “I was several times awoke in the course of the night by the yells but was too much fortiegued to be deprived of a tolerable sound night’s repose.” Beyond that, the Indians’ dogs—beasts of burden, sanitation engineers, beloved pets and sometimes victuals—must have dominated the sound key of many villages.^[15]Clark, October 18, 1805. One would suppose that the noise pollution around the Wanapum and Yakama villages at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers must have been somewhat reduced when the … Continue reading

Immoral Abdomens

At Fort Clatsop, where rain forced them to entertain guests in their cramped and stuffy quarters, Clark troped an ordinary human sound in an unusual context. Some of the natives of that neighborhood not only inhaled tobacco smoke but also swallowed it, with crepitant consequences. “They frequently give us,” wrote Clark one soggy January day, “Sounding proofs of its createing a dismorallity of order in the abdomen, nor are those light matters thought indelicate in either Sex, but all take the liberty of obeying the dictates of nature without reserve.”^[16]January 10, 1806; Moulton, 6:196.

Moving Water and Sand

Night and day, the expedition’s ears were tuned to every nuance of the soundscape, the way a musician hears every single note of a composition—without effort, always aware of implications. During most of their journey, their aural antennae were focused on the sounds of the rivers, sorting out the cacophony of signals—separating the noise of their oars or poles, of their wading and stumbling, from the threatening sounds of rapids, eddies, shifting sands, collapsing banks, submerged logs and treacherous sawyers.^[17]In the boater’s lingo, a sawyer is a fallen tree still anchored to its root-wad, rhythmically rising and sinking in the chaotic current. It can entrap the unwary boater, brush him from his … Continue reading On the 21st of June 1804, Clark noted “the swift water over roleing Sands which rored like an immence falls.” Three months later, on September 21, at half-past one in the morning, Clark was awakened by the sound of moving sand. “I got up,” he wrote, “and by the light of the moon observed that the Sand was giving away both above & beloy and would Swallow our Perogues in a few minits, ordered all hands on board and pushed off we had not got to the opposit Shore before pt. of our Camp fel into the river.”

It was, indeed, the sound of moving water that sustained them and drew them onward: As they approached the Rockies, all ears must have been seeking the rumble that would proclaim the Great Falls of the Missouri. Back at Fort Mandan, the Indians had stated to them that “the nois it makes can be heard at a great distance.” In mid-June of 1805, after the crisis of uncertainty at the mouth of the Marias River, they revelled in “the agreeable sound of a fall of water,” and Lewis enjoyed the “hising” of the foam as it floated away. Clark, regarding those “Cateracts” with astonishment, remarked on their “dedly Sound.” Five months later, as they approached the Pacific Ocean on November 7th, the “roreing or noise made by the waves brakeing on the rockey Shores” seemed to confirm their success. Never mind that, technically, their ears had deceived them, and they had only reached the vast estuary of the Columbia River.

Hoof Beats

En route across the Bitterroot Mountains, it was the thump and shuffle of horses’ hooves that marked the days—and the nights. Nothing will rouse a horseman from deep sleep quicker than the silence left behind after the livestock have wandered off.

Fine Mornings and Evenings

Otherwise, the men must have relished occasional windows in the soundscape—those cold, clear, windless nights, or those magic moments before dawn, when all of Nature holds its breath while the creatures of the night slip past those of the day. Then there was the solemn silence on that “butifull evening.” following the funeral of Sergeant Floyd. Those are the moments when Lewis might again have reverently wished for the gift of James Thompson, that English poet whose name he invoked upon his first sight of the Great Falls of the Missouri. He might even have recalled Thompson’s line, “Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise.”^[18]A Hymn (1730). Thompson (1700–1748) was a pioneer of 19th-century Romanticism, and a precursor of Cowper and Wordsworth. His epic, The Seasons (1726–30), with its focus on the beauties of nature, … Continue reading And when the wind stopped shrieking through the chinks of Fort Mandan or roaring in their ears on the plains, or the rain quit drumming on the shingles of Fort Clatsop, their ears’ respite must have been…well…thrilling.

Regarding those mystery noises in the mountains, see on this site Unaccountable ‘Artillery’ of the Rockies.