Knife River and St. Louis
by Kristopher K. Townsend
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau’s education began in a Hidatsa village. In St. Louis at the age of five or six, his classical education began under the guardianship of William Clark.
Helianthus annuus
by Kristopher K. Townsend
The common sunflower as a staple food among the Mandans and Lemhi Shoshones did not escape the attention of the journalists. Includes two traditional Hidatsa recipes.
Prunus virginiana
by Kristopher K. Townsend
As they traveled up the Missouri in the summer of 1804, the journalists took note of a wild cherry different than the wild cherry of their homes. It was the common chokecherry, which grew on bushes instead of trees.
Prunus virginiana var. melanocarpa
by Kristopher K. Townsend
This variety of the common chokecherry gave Lewis his decoction of simples and was the subject of his botanical scrutiny.
Prunus pensylvanica
by Kristopher K. Townsend
Before signing off in his last journal entry, Lewis had to botanize one last time. He concludes with an accurate description of the pin cherry, Prunus pensylvanica.
Prunus emarginata
by Kristopher K. Townsend
Lewis collected a specimen of bitter cherry, Prunus emarginata, while at Long Camp on 29 May 1806 and described it on 7 June 1806. He wrote that “the natives count it a good fruit”.
Lewis's threats and promises
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Pretending to have been insulted by their accusation, Lewis pompously declared that “if they continued to think thus meanly of us…they might rely on it that no whitmen would ever come to trade with them or bring them arms and amunition.”
At the Falls of the Missouri
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After Lewis’s preliminary sketch, later artists and photographers contributed to the visual documentation of the “sublimely grand” waterfall including Barralet, Gustavus Sohon, A. E. Mathews, and F. Jay Haynes.
'Blue Earth,' 'Clift of White' and 'Burning Bluffs'
by John W. Jengo
The Missouri River exposed rock formations that were geologically diverse, distinctly colored, rich in mineral content, and in some places, dramatically distinguished by steaming and smoking hot earth that beckoned to be investigated.
Endless possibilities
by Joseph A. Mussulman
One amateur historian averred that it was “a corruption of the French name Le Louis, given to the stream and pass by early French trappers” in honor of Meriwether Lewis. Another claimed that the mystery [wo]man was named after “Lolo [i.e., Lola] Montez, a noted Spanish beauty.”
"Much Lamented"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 20 August 1804, the Corps proceeded thirteen miles, while young Floyd quickly grew worse. A little past noon they landed, and presently Floyd said, “I am going away.”
Anti calomel and the "genteel tradition"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
No more calomel! Not just an anthem, a reflection on the transition from the “Age of Enlightenment” to the “genteel tradition.”
Bonasa umbellus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
At Fort Clatsop on 5 February 1806, Reubin Field returned from a hunt with “a phesant which differed but little from those common to the Atlantic states.”
Five weeks with the "Chopunnish"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Upon its return from the Pacific coast in the spring of 1806, the expedition camped on the Clearwater River near present-day Kamiah from 14 May 1806 until 10 June 1806, waiting for the snow to melt on the crest of the Bitterroot Mountains.
The second gate
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Late in the day on 19 July 1805, Lewis and his party entered a canyon between “the most remarkable clifts that we have yet seen.” They seemed to rise “from the waters edge on either side perpendicularly to the hight of 1200 feet.”
One of nature's greatest pests
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“The prickly pear is now in full blume,” he wrote on a mild early-summer day in 1805, “and forms one of the beauties as well as the greatest pests of the plains.”
Lewis's Fort Mountain
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“This mountain has a singular appearance. it is situated in a level plain, it’s sides stand nearly at right angles with each other and are each about a mile in extent … from it’s figure we gave it the name of fort mountain.”
Every hunter, after following the land instead of the river, had to somehow end his day within sight or sound of the party’s camp at a location which no one could have known in advance. They were not always successful.
(ca. 1775–1812), Private
by Barbara Fifer, Joseph A. Mussulman
Colter left a legacy of western lore, not the least of which was his famous run from the Blackfeet Indians and his exploration of “Colter’s Hell.” Yet his contributions to the expedition were also many.
Antelope, Antilocapra americana
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The men of the Corps of Discovery must have been electrified by their first sighting of the pronghorn antelope at the northeast corner of today’s state of Nebraska. Naturalists were eager to find the answers to some basic questions about them.
This page has been wholly funded by the Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation.
This site is provided as a public service by the
Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation
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Unless otherwise noted, 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).