Lewis & Clark
DISPATCHES FROM THE DISCOVERY TRAIL EPISODE 12
On the Road Again after a Winter at Fort Mandan By Michael O. Perry
O
n April 7 of 1805, the Corps of Discovery resumed their westward trek after wintering at Fort Mandan. During the winter of 1804, Lewis and Clark had pulled together all available information about what might lie ahead. Besides the maps they brought from St. Louis and obtained from several explorers, they recorded information from Indians. They had great hopes the maps they would be relying on were accurate. As they made their way across present-day North Dakota and Montana, they were pleased to find rivers where the Indians had told them they would be. Progress up the Missouri River after leaving Fort Mandan was better than expected. The Corps reached the present-day border between North Dakota and Montana on April 26th. Don’t Rock the Boat!
On May 14, 1805, disaster struck the white pirogue. In it were Sacajawea and Pomp, along with her husband Charbonneau, and five other men. Clark wrote, “a Squawl of wind Struck our Sale broad Side and turned the perogue nearly over, and… She nearly filed with water – the articles which floated out was nearly all caught by the Squar who was in the rear. This accident had like to have cost us deerly; for in this perogue were embarked, our papers, Instruments, books, medicine, a great proportion of our merchandize, and in short almost every article indispensably necessary to… insure the success of the enterprise.” Lewis tells us, “Charbono was at the helm of this Perogue… Charbono cannot swim
and is perhaps the most timid waterman in the world… Capt. C. and myself were both on shore… spectators of her fate.” Charbonneau panicked as the wind “turned her… topsaturva. Capt. C. and myself both fired our guns to attract the attention…, but they did not hear us… they suffered the perogue to lye on her side for half a minute before they took the sail in, the perogue then wrighted but had filled within an inch of the gunwales; Charbono still crying to his god for mercy, had not yet recollected the rudder, nor could the repeated orders of the Bowsman, Cruzat, bring him to his recollection until he threatened to shoot him instantly if he did not take hold of the rudder and do his duty.” Two men bailed out the water with kettles as the other three rowed to shore. A very close call, but it wasn’t the first time; just a month earlier, Charbonneau had almost overturned the same boat under similar conditions.
Contemporary photo of the confluence of Marias and Missouri Rivers.
... what to do? ... Lewis and Clark’s trailblazing and orientation continue to amaze students of the Expedition and so does their most notable conundrum: what to do and where to go at the confluence of what is now the Marias and Missouri Rivers. Today, the spot is memorialized as Decision Point, a significant stop on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.
Capt. Clark: Romance on his mind?
On May 29th, while traveling through the Missouri River Breaks section now designated a National Wild and Scenic River, Clark named the “Judith River” in honor of Julia (Judy) Hancock, a 13-year old girl in Virginia he would marry three years later. Captain Lewis mentioned it in his journal and while he probably didn’t approve of naming the river after a young girl, two weeks later he did a similar thing. Is this the way to the Great Falls?
On June 2nd, near present-day Loma, Montana, they came upon a fork in the river not shown on their maps. The
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, pages 2, 35.
Captains had been told there was only one major northern river between the Mandan villages and the Great Falls of the Missouri; the Indians called it “the river which scolds at all others.” The Corps had passed such a river three weeks earlier and named it the Milk River due to its white color. So, what was this “extra” river doing here? Lewis wondered which river the Indians “had discribed to us as approaching very near to the Columbia river. To mistake the stream… and to ascend such stream to the rocky Mountain or perhaps much further before we could inform ourselves whether it did approach the Columbia or not, and then be obliged to return and take the other stream would not only loose us the whole of this season but would probably so dishearten the party that it might defeat the expedition altogether.” If the Missouri went north, then why hadn’t the Indians told them of the river coming in from the south? Both
O. P E R R Y
dispatches MICHAEL
from the
Discovery Trail with
HAL CALBOM DEBBY NEELY
by woodcut art
A LAYMAN’S
K
LEWIS & CLAR
rivers were about the same size since it was peak runoff. The north fork was muddy while the south fork was clear. The north fork was deeper, but was a little narrower and slower-flowing. The Indians had told them “that the water of the Missouri was nearly transparent at the great falls” so Lewis and Clark were sure the south fork was the true Missouri. However, everyone else felt the Missouri was actually the north fork. What to do? Management/Labor Negotiations
A small party was sent up each fork in an effort to determine which was the major stream, but they returned the same day with no conclusive information. Lewis and Clark could have simply ordered the men to proceed up the south fork, but they decided to each take a small party to “ascend these rivers until we could perfectly satisfy ourselves of the one, which it would be most expedient for us to take on our main journey to the Pacific.” cont page 7
In April 2021 we introduced a revised and expanded version of Michael Perry’s popular series which was expanded In the new book, Dispatches from the Discovery Trail, edited by Hal Calbom and published by CRRPress. It includes an in-depth author interview and new illustrations and commentary. Columbia River Reader / April 15, 2022 / 5
