Canoe-building Tools

Lewis made lists of requirements, and he also kept records of purchases. Exactly what tools arrived at the Knife River Villages may not ever be known, but the assortment certainly would have been impressive. Lewis’s “List of Requirements”^[1]Jackson, I:69-75. is an important historical document even though it is of uncertain date and purpose, but most of the items the expedition actually carried can be found in the “Orders from the War Department”,^[2]Jackson, I:75-93. or, perhaps more inclusively, in the “Summary of Purchases”.^[3]Jackson, I:93-99. But by the time they reached Saint Louis, Lewis had tripled the number of men on the expedition. The captains’ needs in terms of both personnel and materiel increased so much that they had to buy more of many items, and some others they hadn’t thought of before.

For example, the Purveyor of Public Supplies bought two “shingling hatchets” for the expedition, but no froes with which to rive the shingles, not to mention planks. However, according to a list made by Clark on 7 December 1805, the day they began construction of Fort Clatsop, one “Frow” and one “malet” inexplicably showed up in the company’s toolbox. If they weren’t procured at the last minute in Philadelphia, they might have been bought in St. Louis, if not in some town along the Ohio River. But how many more items did they add, and what were they? We simply don’t know, and possibly never will.

Canoe Making Tools

The list of tools desired includes many useful for making canoes: 4 drawing knives, 2 augers, 24 files, 12 dozen chisels, 2 foot adzes, 2 pick adzes. And a list of tools actually purchased includes: “some” drawing knives, handsaw files, rasps, 3 socket chisels, 3 mortise chisels, 2 handsaws, 4 drawing knives, 17 dozen(!) files and rasps, 2 hatchets, and 18 “small falling axes.” As noted above, there were probably other purchases of which no record has survived. Naturally, some of the items might have been intended for trade with the Indians. Nevertheless, one would think that 17 dozen files and rasps, plus draw knives and planes, would be sufficient to smooth the outsides of 6 canoes.

Although the sketchy journal treatment of the canoes leaves us to draw inferences, I feel confident that given their time, their skill, and these tools, the rough and primitive look of most replica canoes is a mistake: in a few hours the men could and would have shaped and smoothed a hull, as was standard at the time, to lessen its friction and resistance to the water, for the long pull upriver.

What could they do with these tools? As Huser notes, “Patrick Gass was a skilled carpenter responsible for building the expedition’s winter quarters at Fort Mandan and at Fort Clatsop.”^[4]Huser, 182. At Camp Dubois, in Illinois across the Mississippi from the mouth of the Missouri, Clark and his recruits raised simple cabins for themselves, and made some improvements to the barge, including storage lockers on the deck at the gunnels. The lockers had hinged lids with cleats nailed to them so that when closed they served as catwalks for poling, and when raised served as breastworks against arrows. That’s approaching cabinet work.

Finding Suitable Trees

Although they had the tools, the trees had limits. At Fort Mandan they were unable to make planks from the cottonwood trees, and had to build with poles. That may be the reason they did not make washstrakes, or boards, to build up the sides of the canoes against the Missouri wind and waves they knew so well. They built multiple buildings at Camp Dubois, Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop; they carried an arsenal of tools and a forge to make or repair them; when possible, they made their own planks for their housing and sheds; they carried numerous axes, saws, chisels, adzes, hatchets, knives, draw knives, rasps, and files. They could have shaped a log to the canoe they wanted, within the limits of the trees available, and could easily, in a few hours, have shaved a canoe smooth, to Chittenden’s standards: “a round log shorn of all roughness and irregularity . . . strong, light, and easily managed.”

Clark was also looking at boats. In a rare record of appraisal, he watched an Indian canoe at Wood River: Three Potawatomis in a small canoe crossed the Mississippi from the west bank when, as Clark looked on, “the waves was so high & wind blowing with violence that I expected their Canoo would Certounly fill with water or turn over, but to my astonishment found on their landing that they were all Drunk and their Canoo had not received any water.”^[5]Moulton, 2:131.

Perhaps Clark was admiring the hull design; perhaps the design of a universe kind to fools.