Verry Large

n October 7, 1804, at the Moreau River, about 15 river-miles below present Mobridge, South Dakota, the men noticed the first evidence of the presence of a grizzly. Clark wrote,

at the mouth of this river we Saw the Tracks of White bear which was verry large.

Between this point and their last encounter with a grizzly on August 6, 1806, near today's Williston, North Dakota, the total number sighted cannot be known. Forty-three were definitely killed, and an unknown number were wounded.

At his Fort Clatsop desk, on February 16, 1806, Lewis summarized what he had learned about the grizzly's habitats.

The brown white or grizly bear are found in the rocky mountains in the timbered parts of it or Westerly side but rarely; they are more common below the rocky Mountain on the borders of the plains where there are copses of brush and underwood near the watercouses. they are by no means as plenty on this [the western] side of the rocky mountains as on the other, nor do I believe that they are found atall in the woody country, which borders this coast as far in the interior as the range of mountains which, pass the Columbia (river) between the Great Falls and rapids of that river.

--Joseph Mussulman, 1999