In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark by Wallace G. Lewis Read Free Book Online

Meriwether Lewis—accompanied by Drouillard, the brothers Joseph and Reuben Field, Sergeant Patrick Gass, and Privates William Werner and Robert Frazer—had proceeded north a dozen or so miles along the Bitterroot River to the point where it empties into the Clark Fork River at Missoula, Montana. The men then turned east, passing through “Hellgate” gap from which the Clark Fork emerges. The Nez Perce scouts, who had left them at the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers, had told the explorers that an easy overland shortcut would take them back to theGreat Falls of the Missouri along a long-used route to buffalo hunting grounds. The route was so widely traveled that they could not miss the path. Following the Blackfoot River Canyon northeast from Bonner, Montana, the party emerged into the broad Blackfoot Valley on June 7. A few miles east of Lincoln, the buffalo road cut north to Alice Creek, which headed on the Continental Divide. North of Rogers Pass, where Highway 200 crosses the Divide, Lewis’s party reached a narrow saddle. Today it is known as Lewis and Clark Pass, although no roadway crosses over it. From the 7,452-foot elevation, the men could look out upon the prairies beyond the Great Falls. On the east side of the Divide they proceeded north to the Sun (“Medicine”) River near Augusta, which they followed due east to the White Island Camp south of Great Falls, the terminus of their portage route the previous July.
    In the first of two strokes of good timing, Sergeant Gass’s party, bringing the dugout canoes up the Missouri River, arrived at the same time. The second stroke of good timing occurred following a side trip Lewis, Drouillard, and the Field brothers made to explore the Marias River, which entered the Missouri downstream from Fort Benton. On July 16 the four men set out from the camp at the Great Falls north to the Marias River, which they followed upstream to Cut Bank Creek, passing the site of Cut Bank, Montana. On July 26 they stopped following the tributary at the location Lewis dubbed “Camp Disappointment,” since it was clear that the Marias River headwaters were not far to the north but rather in the near rampart of mountains, now part of Glacier National Park. After proceeding southwest to Two Medicine River (the Marias south fork), they encountered a group of Piegan Blackfoot warriors, who spent the night with them. In the morning Lewis and his men scuffled with the Piegans over a rifle and the horses. Two of the Blackfeet were killed. For the rest of the day and through the night, Lewis’s party fled toward the Missouri River, knowing the Piegans would return in force. En route, they passed the site of Conrad, Montana. On July 28 the four men were enormously relieved to reach the bank of the Missouri just in time to meet Sergeant Gass’s canoe party and be taken onboard.
    On August 7, 1806, Lewis, Gass, and their men arrived at the junction of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, just inside the presentNorth Dakota border. A message there told them that William Clark and the rest of the expedition had moved downstream after waiting a week. Lewis followed, hampered by discomfort from an accidental gunshot wound in the buttocks. 21 They caught up with Clark about thirty miles before reaching the mouth of the Little Missouri. The final leg of the journey, from Fort Mandan to St. Louis, went relatively quickly. What had taken the initial expedition party the entire summer of 1804, traveling upstream, passed by at a clip of nearly eighty miles per day when they were going downstream. By September 23 they were back in St. Louis.

Bibliography
BOOKS AND ARTICLES
    Abbott, Carl.
The Great Extravaganza: Portland and the Lewis and Clark Exposition.
Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1981.
    Alexander, Donald B. “Tracking down a Heritage.”
Parks and Recreation
1 (March 1966): 221–226.
    Allen, John L. “‘Of This