Tracking Lewis and Clark on the Upper Missouri

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Outside Traveler 2004

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Revisionist History

After a half-day of easy paddling, we set up our camp on a low ridge above Little Sandy Creek, one of the many well-spaced campsites along the river designated by the Bureau of Land Management. Lewis and Clark passed this spot on June 1, 1805, as they made their way toward the confluence of the Missouri and the Marias, where they were to face a crucial decision about which river to take west. Jim shared his philosophy on tracking Lewis and Clark that night over a blazing fire and bourbon.

"Folks come downriver expecting to see the warm embers from Lewis and Clark's fires. I tell 'em this isn't Disney World, so they're gonna have to use a little more imagination." He fueled ours by reading aloud some of his favorite journal passages, like Lewis's description upon seeing the Great Falls of the Missouri: "I wished … that I might be enabled to give to the enlightened world some just idea of this truly magnificent and sublimely grand object which has, from the commencement of time, been concealed from the view of civilized man."

Lewis & Clark Expedition Facts

Congress originally appropriated $2,500 for the trip, which began in May 1804. In the end, the tab for the expedition was $38,722.35.

Jefferson came up with a secret code for Lewis to authenticate his messages back to Washington. Code word: "Artichokes."

The shopping list included 600 pounds of grease, 193 pounds of "portable soup" (a paste of beef, eggs, and vegetables), and 18 barrels of whiskey.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, the young nation's leading physician and a Declaration of Independence signatory, prescribed the expedition 600 pills of a laxative that came to be known fondly as "Rush's Thunderbolts."

Lewis and Clark recorded 178 plants and 122 animals previously undocumented by Anglo-Americans, including the ponderosa pine and the grizzly bear.

As we glided along, mile after placid mile, it was hard to imagine this as the same section of river where Lewis, as he vividly described, struggled around rocky points ("the water drives with great force") and where safe passage required "much labor and infinite risk." For us it was a cakewalk, especially with the current in our favor. But we soon learned that the old Missouri still has a few tricks up its sleeve.

After enduring a night of lashing rain coupled with chinook winds, we broke camp at Eagle Creek, the Corps's May 31, 1805, campsite, and paddled right into a 40-mile-per-hour headwind. "There's sheep walkin' today," yelled Jim from the stern. As I scanned the banks for livestock, Jim explained that it was just an old river saying for the whitecaps on the water.

At a sharp bend in the river, water plumes lashed our faces, threatening to spin our canoe around. After an hour of muscle-burning paddling, we pulled ashore. Using towropes and sloshing through knee-deep water, we guided the canoe around the bend—finally—and into calmer waters. This technique, known as cordelling, was an almost daily penance for the Corps as they struggled upriver against a much wilder Missouri.

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