Electing a New Sergeant The boats sail twenty miles stopping southeast of present-day Vermillion, South Dakota. Lewis is overcome by caustic fumes and when the captains poll the men for a new sergeant, Patrick Gass receives the most votes.
Salmon River Canyons Clark's group is hemmed in by steep hills and mountains as they travel down the Salmon River in search of a place to build canoes.
Shoshone Arrival Lewis examines the roots brought in by Drouillard the previous night. Midday, Cameahwait's band arrives at Fortunate Camp near the three forks of the Beaverhead River. Food and horses are exchanged.
An Engagé Returns Arikara and Cheyenne decline Clark's invitation to travel to Washington City. The Cheyenne chief asks that fur traders come to his nation, and a down-on-his-luck engagé from 1804 is added to the group. They head down the Missouri and camp below present-day Mobridge, South Dakota.
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Throughout their journey, the expedition encountered people from numerous and diverse nations, collectively referred to as First Nations, First Peoples, Native Nations, and the American Indian.
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"our guide could not speake the language of these people but soon engaged them in conversation by signs or jesticulation, the common language of all the Aborigines of North America." Lewis exaggerated the universality of sign language, which was mainly employed by tribes of the Great Plains . . . .
Aerial photographer Jim Wark and Lewis and Clark scholar Joseph A. Mussulman offer a fascinating perspective on the Corps of Discovery's historic journey. Originally printed in 2004, the work completed work is presented here with updates from the author.
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At the main meeting and market center for area tribes, Lewis and Clark first met the Teton Sioux on 25 September 1804. One of Jefferson's primary political objectives for the expedition was to create a peace treaty and trade agreement with the Tetons, the most potent military and economic force on the lower Missouri . . . .
Late in the day on 19 July 1805, Lewis and his party entered a canyon with "the most remarkable clifts that we have yet seen."
The Monongahela River joins the Allegheny River at the apex of Pittsburgh's "golden triangle" to form the river called Ohio—an Iroquois word meaning "big and beautiful." After the Revolutionary War, Pittsburgh quickly grew into a gathering-place and jumping-off point . . . .
John L. Allen is a former chairman of the Department of Geography and emeritus professor of geography at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. His publications, numbering more than thirty titles to date, reflect his broadly varied interests, including the exploration of the American West, human impacts on natural environments and related landscape changes, and images of the West. Among students of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Professor Allen's best-known work is Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest (reprint, New York: Dover, 1975). Originally published under the title Passage through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest, it remains among the most authoritative and frequently-referenced works in the literature.
Other major works of authored or edited by Professor Allen include Explorers from Ancient Times to the Space Age (New York: Macmillan, 1999); Student Atlas of World Geography (4th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004); A Continent Comprehended (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997); Jedidiah Smith and the Mountain Men of the American West (New York: Chelsea House, 1991); Student Atlas of Environmental Issues (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997); Student Atlas of Anthropology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004); and the three-volume North American Exploration (University of Nebraska Press, 1997).
Discover Lewis and Clark through the eye of the artists that followed.
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Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1807, Lewis hired an "able pencil," John James Barralet for forty dollars to make "two Drawings water falls." Barralet also illustrated Alexander Wilson's epic poem The Foresters. These works are used here to tell the Lewis and Clark story.
"Historical accuracy is paramount, but there is another obvious component: the art itself." Paintings and illustrations by contemporary artist Charles Fritz are used throughout the Discovering Lewis & Clark® site.
America's greatest ornithologist, John James Audubon, was just starting his career when Lewis and Clark returned, and there is ample evidence that he drew inspiration from Lewis and Clark's writings. Famous for his beautiful paintings in The Birds of America (4 vols., 1827–38), he later published the 3-volume Quadrupeds of North America.
From the very beginning to the day they left Fort Mandan bound for the Pacific Ocean, the composition of 'Corps of Discovery' was a work in progress. It would eventually consist of Lewis, Clark and his slave, York; three sergeants; twenty-three privates; two interpreters, one bringing along his wife Sacagawea and her baby son, Jean Baptiste; and finally, a dog named Seaman.
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At the age of 43, Lepage was the oldest member of the Expedition. He was a French-Canadian trapper and had lived among the Mandan prior to the expedition. His most embarrassing moment may have been losing the pack horse with Lewis's winter clothing.
At Camp Chopunnish, Potts nearly drowned when the dugout canoe he was in was swamped in the Clearwater River. Lewis noted that he made land with "much difficulty." But Potts's worst accident happened when the Corps retraced the Lolo Trail through the Bitterroots.
This site is provided as a public service by the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation with cooperation and funding from the following organizations:
Journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).
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