Starting at Pittsburgh, traveling to the Pacific Ocean, and then returning to St. Louis, the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled approximately 10,600 miles. Of that, 85%—over 9,000 miles—was by boat.[1]Verne Huser, On the River with Lewis and Clark (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), 187–88. The flotilla variously included a military barge (called the ‘boat’ or ‘barge’ but never the ‘keelboat’), pirogues, dugout canoes, rafts, and boats covered with animal hides—the iron-framed boat and bull boats. To understand travel in the early 1800 American West is to understand the boats and challenges of river navigation.
With every crossing they unavoidably drifted farther downstream. Lewis recounted the climactic rafting episode of the day.
On the 23 August 1805, the centuries-old fantasy of a “water route across the continent for the purposes of commerce” dissolved in the roar of an unimaginable torrent–one of the most dangerous, unforgiving rivers in North America, that would later be called “The River of No Return.”
Indians stole all the horses, so Sgt. Pryor and his three privates constructed two bull boats and floated down the Yellowstone River in hopes of catching up with Clark or Lewis.
Dugout Canoes
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Altogether, the men carved 15 dugout canoes. At Fort Mandan they hewed 6 from cottonwood logs. West of the Rockies they used ponderosa pine logs to craft five new canoes. On the Yellowstone, Clark made two small dugouts a few miles above today’s Billings.
The explorers assembled the iron-framed boat in the early summer of 1805 at the Upper Portage Camp, upstream of the Great Falls. There Lewis and the men put together the frame. “We called her the Experiment,” wrote Sergeant Patrick Gass.
This device was typically used for measuring the speed of a vessel at sea, but it could also be used to measure the velocity of a river’s current. It consisted of four parts: a log-ship, or log-chip; a specially calibrated log-line; a reel to hold the log-line; and a log-glass, or sand-glass.
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The 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.
In May of 1803, Lewis bought four “tin horns”—elsewhere called “Tin blowing Trumpets” or, by Sgt. Ordway, “Sounden [Sounding] horns.” They were likely used a signals between boats and on several occasions a horn was used to call in lost hunters.
Testing Dugout Canoes
by William W. Bevis
No one had tested modern replicas in demanding conditions: upstream ferries and eddy seam crossings in high water—canoeing techniques the Lewis and Clark party probably used many times a day. How were these dugouts shaped? How did they behave in river conditions?
The Pirogues
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The two pirogues served as supplementary cargo carriers accompanying the barge from the mouth of the Missouri to the Mandan villages, one of which became the command boat on the return trip from the Marias River to St. Louis.
The Dugout Canoes of Lewis and Clark
by William W. Bevis
A mythology of “primitive” canoes, heavy and crude, and of primitive canoeing, has gradually taken hold in Lewis and Clark scholarship, and is here revised. This essay examines their canoeing as well as their canoes.
Details from the journals up through the Missouri Breaks in high water, from near the Musselshell River on 13 May 1805, to the Marias, 2 June 1805, are examined. One can only appreciate their handling of the canoes in the context of their daily trials.
Valuable reevaluation of the evidence has accumulated about the building of the Lewis and Clark barge some two hundred years ago. Much of this evidence supports the conclusion that Jacob Myers was the principal builder.
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“So far, we have experienced more difficulty from the navigation of the Missouri, than danger from the Savages. The difficulties which oppose themselves to the navigation of this immence river, arise from the rapidity of it’s current, it’s falling banks, sandbars, and timber”
Meriwether Lewis listed a “Keeled Boat” in his pre-expedition shopping list, but after he finally got it, he and the other journalists of the Corps of Discovery simply called it “the boat” (190 times) or, less often, “the barge” (32 times).
In a purely physical sense, the expedition was held together by rope. Rope for handling the barge, the pirogues and the canoes. Rope to secure sails and anchors, and for towing. Rope for fastening packages, assembling tents, and controlling horses.
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.
Notes
| ↑1 | Verne Huser, On the River with Lewis and Clark (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), 187–88. |
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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.
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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).