Dispatches from the Discovery Trail ~ Episode 5

EPISODE 5 A Dinosaur, Plesiosaur and Prairie Dogs

in april we introDuceD a reviseD anD expanDeD version of Michael Perry’s popular series. In the new book, Dispatches from the Discovery Trail, edited by Hal Calbom and excerpted below, CRRPress includes an in-depth author interview and new illustrations and commentary.

How would you go about capturing a prairie dog to send to the President of the United States? And why would you want to do it in the first place? Many readers who have tried to catch a mole in their lawn or garden will get a kick out of what Lewis and Clark did.

By August 1804, Lewis and Clark’s Corp of Discovery had made their way up the Missouri River to present day South Dakota. While French trappers had been in the area for at least 75 years, the Corps of Discovery members were the first Americans to see the vast expanse of the Great Plains, which was a virtual Garden of Eden.

Every time they saw a new animal, they shot at least one so Lewis or Clark could make the detailed examination needed to fulfill Thomas Jefferson’s instructions to document unknown plants and wildlife they encountered. In the first four months of their journey, they had seen many new species of animals, including the coyote, magpie, gray wolf, mule deer, pronghorn (often wrongly called an antelope), and prairie dog. Prairie dogs fascinated Lewis and Clark, and they saw a staggering number. Some biologists believe there were 5 billion prairie dogs at that time, while 200 years later they were candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act. As late as 1905, a government scientist found a village covering an area the size of West Virginia and housing an estimated 400 million prairie dogs!

Flush them out!

Lewis was so intrigued by the prairie dog that he decided to catch a live specimen to ship to Washington, D.C. Clark wrote “near the foot of this high Nole we discovered a Village of an annamale… which burrow in the grown. The Village of those little dogs is under the ground a considerable distance. We dig under 6 feet thro rich hard clay without getting to their Lodges.” Patrick Gass reported “Captain Lewis and Captain Clarke with all the party… took with them all the kettles and other vessels for holding water in order to drive the animals out of their holes by pouring in water; but though they worked at the business till night they only caught one of them.” According to Clark, “Some of their wholes we put in 5 barrels of water without driving them out, we caught one by the water forceing him out. The Village of those animals Covs. about 4 acrs of Ground on a Gradual decent of a hill and Contains great numbers of holes on the top of which those little animals Set erect make a Whistling noise and whin alarmed Slip into their hole.

A bit of arsenic ought to do it

Earlier, Clark had written of a close call Lewis experienced: “by examination this Bluff Contained Alum, Copperas, Cobalt, Pyrites; a Alum Rock Soft & Sand Stone… also a clear Soft Substance

Michael Perry enjoys local history and travel. His popular 33-installment Lewis & Clark series appeared in Columbia River Reader’s early years and helped shape its identity and zeitgeist. After two encores, the series has been expanded and published in a book. Details, page 2.

M I C H A E L O. P E R R Y from the Discovery trail dispatches

with HAL CALBOM woodcut art by dEbby NEELy

A LAYMAN’S LEWIS & CLARK

which… I believe to be arsenic. Capt. Lewis in proveing the quality of those minerals was Near poisoning himself by the fumes & tast of the Cobalt which had the appearance of Soft Isonglass. Copperas & alum is very pisen, Capt. Lewis took a Dost of Salts to work off the effects of the arsenic.” Three days later, Lewis was still suffering: “Capt. Lewis much fatigued from heat the day it being verry hot & he being in a debilitated State from the Precautions he was obliged to take to prevent the effects of the Cobalt, & Minl Substance which had like to have

cont. page 9

… they only caught one of them ...

Spending most of September 7, 1804, digging and flooding their tunnels, the crew managed to catch just one prairie dog. Lewis had a cage built for it with the intention of shipping it back to Washington D.C. for President Jefferson to see firsthand. Lewis loaded the caged prairie dog onto the keelboat and fed it every day in an effort to keep it alive. The crew would continue up the Missouri until the end of October when they reached the Mandan Indian villages near present day Bismarck, North Dakota.

Seven months after it was captured, the live prairie dog was loaded onto the keelboat, along with various plant and animal specimens, for the trip back to St. Louis. While it took more than five months to travel from St. Louis up to the Mandan villages, the return trip took just a month and a half. From St. Louis, the cargo was put on another boat and sent down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Another ship took the cargo through the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida, and up the coast to Baltimore.

In August 1805 (almost a year after it was captured), the prairie dog arrived in Washington, D.C., alive! However, Jefferson was still at Monticello, and did not arrive in Washington until October 4, 1805. Jefferson then shipped the prairie dog to a natural history museum in Philadelphia, where it lived until at least April 5, 1806. No mere barking squirrel, he.

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Dispatches from page 7 poisoned him two days ago” Maybe he had added insult to injury by taking some of Dr. Rush’s Thunderclapper pills that consisted of a mixture of mercury and chlorine? Two days after Lewis tried to poison himself, the expedition came upon an area the Indians were deathly afraid to go near. Clark called it Spirit Mound and wrote “in an imence Plain a high Hill is Situated, and appears of a Conic form and by the different nations of Indians in this quarter is Suppose to be the residence of Deavels, that they are in human form with remarkable large heads and about 18 Inches high, that they are Very watchfull, and are arm’d with Sharp arrows with which they Can Kill at a great distance; they are Said to Kill all persons who are So hardy as to attempt to approach the hill; they State that tradition informs them that many Indians have Suffered by those little people and among others three Mahar men fell a Sacrefise to their murceyless fury not many years Since – so much do the Mahas Souix Ottoes and other neibhbouring nations believe this fable that no consideration is suffecient to induce them to approach the hill.”

… a dinosaur ...

Nobody at all seemed even to know what dinosaurs were at this date. They obviously didn’t know what they had found, but “ it’s hard to believe that somebody hadn’t found big bones before somewhere, but I don’t know if they had. So, the option was just leave it, or put it on the trusty keelboat. And here are these poor guys that have been pulling that beast — the keelboat, not the dinosaur — and pushing and sweating upstream, and they say, ‘here you go, here’s a couple hundred more pounds of bones for you.’”

One of the maps they obtained in St. Louis told of a volcano in South Dakota, but they were unable to locate it. Possibly it was a burning seam of coal (lignite) a St. Louis trader had seen.

One thing they did find was a dinosaur. In 1804, nobody even knew about dinosaurs (the word wasn’t coined until 1845). But, in present day South Dakota, Clark found fossil remains of a plesiosaur, an ocean-dwelling creature of the Mesozoic Era. Clark wrote “we found a back bone with most of the entire laying Connected for 45 feet, those bones are petrified, Some teeth & ribs also Connected.” Some of the vertebra are now in the Smithsonian Museum.

Loopy over the froot

The richness of the Great Plains was most impressive. As Clark wrote earlier, “The Plains of this countrey are covered with a Leek Green Grass, well calculated for the sweetest and most norushing hay – interspersed with Cops of trees, Spreding ther lofty branchs over Pools Springs or Brooks of fine water. Groops of Shrubs covered with the most delicious froot is to be seen in every direction, and nature appears to have exerted herself to butify the Senery by the variety of flours Delicately and highly flavered raised above the Grass, which Strikes & profumes the Sensation, and amuses the mind throws it into Conjecturing the cause of So magnificient a Senery… in a Country thus Situated far removed from the Sivilised world.”

Almost all of the native grassland has now been destroyed by farming. But along with the once uncountable buffalo and prairie dogs, there are still a few places left for people to see the same things Lewis and Clark’s party saw. The same holds true for the Missouri River; with the exception of a short stretch of river in the southeast corner of South Dakota that is still free flowing, it is now just a series of lakes behind the many dams between St. Louis and Montana.

While some folks would like to preserve everything forever (including the Northwest forests), we should be thankful somebody saved at least a portion of it for future generations to enjoy.

Next episode we will learn of the tense meeting with the Teton Sioux, by far the most feared Indians in the west. Winter is fast approaching as they reach North Dakota.

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