March 7, 1805
Charbonneau's windfall
At Fort Mandan, Charbonneau returns with a large assortment of North West Company trade goods. A child is given Rush’s Thunderbolts, a strong laxative, and work on the new canoes continues.
The Coal
February 22, 1805
Fort Mandan rain
The residents of Fort Mandan receive their first rain since last November. Lewis and his recently returned hunters rest while the other enlisted men work to free the boats from the river’s snow and ice.
February 17, 1805
Deer and elk
Lewis’s hunting party finds elk and deer as they work their way back to Fort Mandan below the Knife River Villages. At the fort, The Coal of Mitutanka and Charles McKenzie visit with Clark.
February 6, 1805
A happy resource
Several Mandan men from Mitutanka briefly visit Fort Mandan, and Lewis describes the blacksmiths as a ‘happy resource’. Elsewhere, Clark’s large group hunts near present Square Butte Creek, North Dakota.
January 11, 1805
War medicine dance
Posecopsahe (Black Cat) of Ruptáre and The Coal of Mitutanka visit Fort Mandan and spend the night. At Mitutanka village, several soldiers witness a war medicine dance—perhaps the Mandan Wolf Ceremony. In a lodge at a nearby Hidatsa village, trader François-Antoine Larocque‘s ink freezes.
November 10, 1804
Hewing and guttering
At Fort Mandan, cottonwood logs are shaped with axes and adzes so that they can be used to cover cabin roofs. A Mandan-Arikara man and his wife cross the river in a bull boat with a load of buffalo meat.
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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