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on Montana's Missouri River  Think of the Lewis and Clark Expedition as one of the great adventures of all time. The so-called "Corps of Discovery" headed into unknown places. They encountered fish, animals and birds that they'd never seen before. They made the first maps of a huge part of America. They suffered hardships in every season. They met new people and made new friends. On February 28, 1803, Congress approved $2,500 to fund the expedition at the request of President Thomas Jefferson. Through the spring, summer and fall, Meriwether Lewis prepared for the trip. He asked William Clark if he wanted to help him command the expedition. Clark Agreed. Meriwether Lewis then had a boat built and accumulated almost two tons of goods using the $2,500 Congress had allocated for the expedition. That included such items as compasses, a telescope, cloth for tents, saws, hatchets and knives, fish hooks and lines, presents for the Indians they'd meet along the way, muzzle-loading rifles, rifle flints, gunpowder, lead for bullets and what medicines were available in those days to treat men who would become sick.
On May 14, 1804, the expedition left St. Louis and headed up the Missouri. There were approximately four dozen people in the expedition and they used three boats. One was a big keelboat -- 55 feet long, 8 feet wide, capable of carrying 10 tons of supplies -- and the other two were smaller boats called pirogues. Heading upstream, they would use a variety of methods to make progress including sailing, rowing and sometimes having the men get out of the boat and go ashore, pulling the boat upstream with ropes. All that summer and into the fall, the expedition went up the Missouri through and past what would become the states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and into North Dakota. One member of the expedition died of what is believed to be appendicitis and was buried in Iowa. The others pushed on. By late October, they reach the present site of Bismarck and Mandan, N.D., where they build a fort to spend the winter with the Mandan Tribe and Hidatsa Tribe.
In early April, Lewis and Clark sent some of their men back to St. Louis in the big keelboat. They headed the other two boats up the Missouri once again to continue on. It was on April 29, 1804 that the Corps of Discovery reached the confluence of the Missouri River and the Yellowstone River, just east of what would become the border of the states of North Dakota and Montana. They would spend approximately the next five months in what would become Montana. In a journey that held many spectacular events and discoveries, Montana offered some of the most dramatic among them. They saw herds of many thousands of buffalo. They encountered pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and mule deer. On April 29, near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone, Lewis and another member of the group killed their first grizzly bear.
As the expedition began heading up the Missouri, it increasingly bumped into what the party described as the "white bear." These were grizzly bears which roamed the banks of the river and ventured out onto the prairies beyond. At first, the expedition wasn't that impressed with grizzly bears but as the encounters increased, the men became more and more respectful and fearful of them. In the days of early May, the Lewis and Clark Expedition killed a number of the big bears. They also encountered what they called large and small wolves, which were prairie wolves and coyotes. They noted how these animals were always nearby the big herds of wildlife.
On May 8, 1805, Lewis and Clark came to the mouth of the Milk River and gave the river its name. The reason for naming it the Milk was, as Lewis described it, "the water of this river possesses a peculiar whiteness, being about the color of a cup of tea with the admixture of a teaspoonfull of milk." As the expedition pushed on, the landscape began to change. From the broad prairies of North Dakota and the eastern-most reaches of the Missouri in Montana, the Corps of Discovery were now entering the area that we call the Missouri Breaks. The journals begin describing more rugged hills. There were more encounters with grizzly bears and a heavy wind even blew one of the boats over on its side.
From there, it was up the Jefferson River, then the Beaverhead River, then overland into the Bitterroot valley of Western Montana. It wasn't until the tail end of September that the Lewis and Clark Expedition left Montana, passing over Lolo Pass into what would become Idaho. They then continued on to the Pacific Ocean where they spent the winter. The return trip through Montana came in the middle of the summer of 1806, with the expedition splitting up and Lewis exploring the Marias and then heading back down the Missouri, while Clark crossed the mountains and traveled down the Yellowstone River. The explorers met at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri in early August and headed back east. On Sept. 23, 1806, Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis, more than two years after they set off on their journey. It was an incredible adventure and one which many never thought the men would survive. They brought back information on fish, birds and animals that most never thought existed. They laid out a path that many would follow in the years to come. They were the first U.S. citizens to meet many Indian tribes.  The journals of the explorers make for some exciting and interesting reading as they talk about their encounters with grizzly bears, of how good it was to eat beaver tails, of the vast herds of big game animals, of the problems they faced and the difficulties they conquered during the long journey. All you can get here is a taste of what the Corps of Discovery found on their trip. Hopefully, it will spark an interest to learn more about it. With the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition drawing closer, many activities will be held in cities and towns along the route that the explorers followed in Montana. These are great opportunities to learn a little more about what it was like before Montana became quite so settled as it is today. |
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