Sciences / Fish and Reptiles

Fish and Reptiles

Fish and reptiles encountered by the Lewis and Clark Expedition include salmon, eulachon, turtles, and rattlesnakes.

    Salmon Spirit and Sustenance

    Salmon and His People

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    Salmon said, “When we come up the river we will die, so the human beings will have to catch us before that happens. I’ll come up only on certain times of the year and that’s when they’ll have to catch me.”

    Turtles

    Reptiles of the order Testudines

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    Lewis reported on 26 May 1805, that on a creek he saw “several softshelled Turtles which were the first that have been seen this season; this I believe proceeded reather from the season than from their nonexistence in the portion of the river from the Mandans hither.” He was probably correct.

    Eulachon Eulogy?

    A species in decline

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    Eulachon have always played a critical role in the survival and commerce of First Nations, who give them important cultural status. The eulachon literally saved lives, earning them the name “salvation fish.”

    Rattlesnakes

    Crotalus sp.

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    Lewis awoke to find “a large rattlesnake coiled on the leaning trunk of a tree under the shade of which I had been lying.” It certainly wasn’t the first rattlesnake seen on the trip, but he killed this one, and took time to study it.

    Salmon

    Four 'new' species

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    Meriwether Lewis and William Clark observed and described four fish belonging to the Salmonid family that were previously unknown to scientists, and that were basic foods for thousands upon thousands of Indians west of the Rockies.

    Westslope Cutthroat

    Salmo clarkii

    When Private Silas Goodrich caught half a dozen at the Falls of the Missouri, Lewis observed that these fish: “precisely resemble our mountain or speckled trout…but the specks on these are of a deep black instead of the red or goald colour of those common to the U.’ States.”

    Eulachon

    Thaleichthys pacificus

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    On 24 February 1806, Meriwether Lewis recorded that the Clatsop Indian chief, Coboway, came to the fort to sell some hats, some sturgeon, and “a species of small fish which now begin to run, and are taken in great quantities.”

Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.