November, 1805
When the Corps of Discovery encountered a number of Indians traveling east who were portaging around the rapids, they stopped to exchange greetings with them. The Indians were taking pounded salmon to trade with other tribes upriver. After catching the salmon, they cleaned them, dried them, and then pounded them between two stones. Placing the pounded salmon into a basket lined with dried and stretched salmon skin, they pressed it down as hard as possible and continued to add layers until the basket was full. Then they covered the contents of the basket with more dried and stretched salmon skin, which they tied securely through the handles of the basket. They then stacked the baskets, each weighing about a hundred pounds. The Indians informed the captains that the pounded salmon would keep for several years.
Clark was intrigued by the industry of these people. He commented to those around him, “This is clearly a thriving trade route of a commercially sophisticated people.” Those nearby nodded in agreement as they surveyed the many stacks of baskets, all expertly packed and neatly stacked.
Soon, the expedition reached the beginning of the tidewater of the Columbia River, and from here on the rising and falling of ocean tides introduced the Corps to a very different world.
“It can’t be far now!” Ordway announced. “We must be near the ocean. I can hardly wait to see it!”
The riverbanks were thick with fir, spruce, ash, and alder trees. Migrating water fowl were everywhere, and the honking of geese resounded through the countryside as they called to one another in mid-flight. A damp, gray blanket of fog now chilled the river each morning, and Indian villages dotted the landscape. The river again became extremely wide, with a smooth current. Sand islands were scattered at the mouth of a wide, shallow tributary to the Columbia River. Local Indians signed to the captains that they would see white men’s vessels farther down the river.
“Good news!” Lewis said. “At last we’ll be able to use President Jefferson’s letter of credit to buy the goods we need for the return trip.”
“And they will probably be able to give us information about local Indians,” Clark added. “It will be interesting to see how many white settlers there are.”
The expedition camped on a large island where ponds full of migrating geese, brants, and ducks provided a bountiful supper. Several Indians camped with them, and a Snake tribal woman tried unsuccessfully to talk with Sacagawea. Lewis had Drouillard sign them as best he could to ask how much farther it was to the Pacific Ocean.
“Two more sleeps to the bad-tasting water,” was the reply.
As they progressed, the soldiers noted that the local Indians were much better canoeists than the men of the Corps, and their canoes were better designed to ride the waves than the Corps’ dugout canoes. However, the soldiers were not impressed with the local Indians, finding them physically unattractive and very inclined to steal. The natives looked healthy, although eye infection was a common malady. Great numbers of them had lost vision in one eye, and many had lost their sight entirely. They also had bad teeth, which was rare among other Indians the Corps had met. One of the Indians could speak a few words of English, but the soldiers were amused that the words he so proudly pronounced were curse words—not useful for communication. These western Indians also drove hard bargains, charging inflated prices for their food and goods.
The expedition continued past many islands and timbered bottoms. They met some Indians in handsome canoes that were unlike any the men had seen before. The canoes were very light weight, high in the middle and tapered at each end, with curious figures carved into the prow of each. Wind and high waves did not seem to hinder these canoes, which rode the highest waves with apparent ease. Captain Lewis traded the expedition’s smallest canoe plus a hatchet and a few trinkets for one of these excellent canoes.
After passing several mostly barren large islands, the Corps came to a river that was 120 yards wide at its narrowest point, where the men were astonished to find a bed of quicksand. Captain Clark named it Quicksand River. The expedition continued on the Columbia River until after dark in an effort to escape the constant intrusion of Indians, but they were unsuccessful at doing so. Four canoes of Indians followed them until they camped and then stayed near them all night.
After eight miles the next day, the expedition came upon a large Indian village where some of the natives wore manufactured clothes. When the expedition camped nearby, several local Indians came from the village to visit. They were colorfully dressed, some wearing sailor jackets, shirts, and hats while others wore scarlet and blue blankets. They gave the captains some roots that were about the size of hen’s eggs, called wappato, which the Indians roasted. Although they seemed friendly, they brought along a show of weaponry that included war axes, spears, bows and arrows, and pistols, as well as some trinkets.
This was a meeting fraught with danger! Two groups of armed young men from two very different cultures, unable to communicate with spoken language, faced each other, . Even though the captains thought the native men pompous and disagreeable, they smoked with them in an attentive and friendly manner to try to make friends. The atmosphere changed quickly, however, when Clark discovered that one of them had made off with his pipe tomahawk, which they had all been smoking.
“This is too much!” he said angrily. “Men, search every Indian and all their canoes.” Clark was determined to find his pipe.
The soldiers couldn’t find the tomahawk pipe, and while the search went on, one of the Indians stole Drouillard’s capote—a long, hooded blanket-coat made of heavy wool.
“Goddammit! Stop stealing from us!” a furious Clark shouted. “We came here to be friends with you, but we will fight if you keep stealing from us!” His face was red with anger. The captains found Drouillard’s capote, but not the pipe. Seeing the captains’ anger, the Indians left without further incident.
The Corps of Discovery proceeded ten miles to another large Indian village on an island. Natives who came out in canoes to meet them wanted to trade for guns, but the captains refused. The expedition continued another thirty-one miles before making camp. The next day they passed a small village where Indians came out in canoes to offer them roots, trout, and furs at bargain prices.
“They really have a thriving river trade going on here,” Lewis commented.
“They are fairly advanced in many ways,” Clark agreed. “They just haven’t figured out yet how to create metal and things like that yet.”
“To be honest, we didn’t either,” Lewis mused. “We’re just lucky that our ancestors invented written language so they could pass their knowledge down to us.” As a brisk wind rose from the west, whipping up waves and whistling through the trees, the expedition continued past large bottom lands with cottonwood trees. The wind brought heavy rain, and after traveling twenty-nine miles the Corps camped under an overhanging cliff. It rained heavily all night long, making conditions wet and disagreeable. They no longer had shelter from the rain, having left their tents in the caches on the Missouri River. Sacagawea wrapped herself and Pomp in her buffalo robe so Pomp could draw warmth from her body and be protected from the rain. The next day, the men built large fires to try to dry out their bedding and kill the fleas in them, which had multiplied by every contact with Indian tribes.
The expedition passed low, marshy islands that were partly covered with willows. Fowl of every variety were plentiful: geese, brants, ducks, cranes, loons, and seagulls. The expedition made thirty-four miles in the rain. When they camped, Pryor cocked his ear toward the western horizon.
“Listen!” he shouted. “Everybody be quiet a minute.”
Even the rain couldn’t drown out the sound of waves breaking on rocks in the distance.
“We’ve done it!” shouted Hugh Hall.
“It’s the Pacific Ocean!” Ordway shouted, throwing his cap in the air and then straining to catch it before it landed in the river.
But there was no real celebration for the Corps of Discovery because it was raining too hard for Cruzatte and Gibson to bring out their fiddles. Still, each person was filled with pride, and there was great joy in camp that night despite the wet conditions. They had conquered over half a continent, against all odds for a small group of men living off the land and constantly encountering strange bands of Indians whom folks back home described as “savages,” although the Corps of Discovery had been greeted amiably and assisted by all the tribes they had encountered except the Teton Sioux.
The next day, they rounded a point into what they assumed was a bay because the river was suddenly five to six miles wide. When the expedition halted to eat, several Indians showed up with fresh fish for sale, which the captains bought. The river became so brackish now that the men couldn’t drink from it. In addition, some of the men began to feel nauseated from the constant movement of the tide.
“Hang the supplies on trees to keep them above the tide,” Captain Clark advised the men when they camped.
It didn’t make much difference, however, because rain fell all evening and all night.
“Does the rain ever stop in this part of the world?” wondered Private Alexander Carson. “I’m mighty tired of it.”
During the night the wind became so strong that it added to their discomfort. Although the tide didn’t reach their campsite, the canoes in the river had to be tended all night long. These were disagreeable circumstances, but the expedition had to spend a second night in this camp because the waves were too high for travel. Nevertheless, the men were so elated at reaching their goal that their cheerfulness was inextinguishable.
“When do we get to see the ocean?” Sacagawea asked Clark through the translation chain.
“Just as soon as we find it, Janie. It has to be very close.”
All the members of the expedition were excited in anticipation of seeing the ocean.
“After all the rivers we’ve had to fight our way up, I thought I’d seen enough goldarn water to last me the rest of my life, but the ocean is different!” Shannon grinned.
November 10 brought another day and night of rain, and it was still raining the next morning. The waves were not as high as the day before, so the men loaded the canoes and set out, passing rocky cliffs and flowing springs. They watched playful porpoises and sea otters in the river, as well as noisy seagulls and ducks.
The rainstorm was unrelenting, and at noon the next day the expedition finally pulled into a cove for shelter until the storm abated. Then they searched again for a better harbor, camping in a place they called Point Ellice. They thought this place with its high cliffs would shelter them from the wind, but when a violent storm arose, high water battered the shore and they were trapped. Point Ellice became a virtual prison for them for the next eleven days as the storm continued. Spirits that had remained high for so long began to plummet.
“This is God-forsaken weather and a God-forsaken place,” Shields groused.
“It sure ain’t the Garden of Eden,” Colter agreed.
At high tide, immense waves uprooted trees, tearing them out of the ground and strewing them across the already confined campsite. Fires were extremely difficult to start and nearly impossible to maintain. Hunters reported back to the captains that the surrounding hills were covered with fallen timber, and the underbrush was so thick it was impassable.
Eventually, they all began to look like survivors from a shipwreck. They were constantly chilled and forced to sleep in wet clothing and soaked bedding, which were rotting as a result of being wet all the time. The odor of wetness pervaded everything. Their canoes were always at the mercy of wind and waves. The men began to despair, fearing that they might be permanently trapped.
“Surely to God, this weather has to break soon,” Lewis agonized.
“It doesn’t show any sign of it,” Clark responded, his voice betraying his loss of optimism.
Then the men spied a dark shape bobbing in the water in the distance, occasionally vanishing and then reappearing on the crest of a high wave.
“It’s a boat!” someone yelled.
“Thank God!” Lewis exclaimed. “If we’re lucky, they’ll have food.”
They were Clatsop Indians, relatives of the Chinooks, who unloaded baskets of roots and fish into the eager hands of the men.
“We are glad to see you! Welcome!” Lewis had Drouillard signal them as best he could. “Does this rain ever stop?”
One Clatsop Indian smiled and with a sweeping gesture indicated that the goods they brought were for sale. If he understood the question about the rain, he ignored it. The captains gratefully bought all the food while the men of the expedition inspected with great interest the remarkable canoe that had brought the Indians through such turbulent water.
The Clatsops departed, apparently pleased with the success of their mission. The men hoped they would return with more food in a few days because the Corps’ dugouts could not travel through such violent water and they would not be able to leave their waterlogged prison until the weather let up.
Rain continued every day and night, making the unsheltered men more and more miserable. Finally, four Indians came to their camp with salmon trout, which the captains bought. Trying to communicate with them, the captains learned that they had visited a ship anchored in the mouth of the river where a white man named Mr. Haley had traded with them, but both the ship and Mr. Haley had now gone.
Out of desperation, the captains finally sent Privates Colter, Willard, and Shannon in the Indian canoe they had recently bought to explore the shoreline beyond Point Ellice and see if they could find a better campsite. The three men explored the coastline until they finally found a sandy beach.
“Let’s go see if there is any game in the area,” Colter suggested.
After quickly spotting a pair of elks, they were satisfied.
“Tell you what,” Colter said to Willard and Shannon, “you men start clearing an area for a camp while I report back to the captain.”
When Colter returned to report that they had found a sandy beach in a bay beyond Point Ellice where there was also game, Captain Lewis decided to explore the site himself. Taking Drouillard and three privates with them, he and Colter returned to the site.
However, Willard and Shannon were missing. Searching and calling for them, they finally found them—in a very precarious position. After Colter left, they had gone hunting and spent the night with five Chinook Indians they had met enroute. While they slept, the Indians stole their rifles. Upon discovering this in the morning, Willard informed the Indians with crude but emphatic signs that a larger party of soldiers was coming and would shoot the thieves. At that propitious moment, Lewis and his party appeared, and the Indians sheepishly handed back the rifles and hastily departed.
For Clark and the main party at Point Ellice, the never-ending storm continued. They survived under miserable conditions with only pounded salmon to eat—but it was food, and they were grateful for it. As the weeks-long storm finally eased, Lewis and his detachment returned and reported that they had explored thirty miles downriver from the new site to the ocean.
“It is something to behold!” Lewis reported enthusiastically to Clark and the main group. “Have the men break camp, and we’ll all go together to see our grand destination—the Pacific Ocean.”
When the expedition reached the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast, the men stood silently, staring at the vast Pacific Ocean with joy, reverence, and an enormous sense of achievement. Foam-tipped breakers swept the rocky shore constantly, pulsating like the heart beat of a living thing.
“This moment may be the high point of our lives,” Ordway said.
“It’s a historic event, for sure,” Colter added.
“Yes, we have made history today,” Clark added wistfully.
“Children will learn about us as part of their schooling,” an awed Shannon predicted almost reverently.
“We have indeed become a part of our country’s history,” Lewis added. “President Jefferson will be proud of us.”
After a meal and an evening of celebration, the expedition turned south, continued along the coast, and camped at a place called Haley’s Bay, where local Indians lived in great numbers. These Indians were very friendly, and their women flirted openly with men of the expedition, as their husbands watched approvingly. In their culture, husbands of the squaws showed respect to visitors by offering their wives for a night of sexual pleasure.
The weather remained rainy, with a high wind coming out of the southwest. The tide was so high that one of the expedition’s canoes smashed against logs driven in by the tide and was nearly destroyed before they could get it out of the water.
The next day was clear and sunny for a most welcome change. Many of the men tried to dry their soggy belongings, and several went out to hunt, while the captains recorded longitude and latitude. The expedition was visited by a group of Chinook Indians that included two chiefs. The captains sat for a smoke with them and gave them medals and an American flag. One of the chiefs wore a beautiful robe made expertly from sea otter skins.
“That is a nice robe,” Clark signed. “I will give you fishhooks for it.”
At first, the chief declined. Then he looked at the belt made of blue beads that Sacagawea was wearing and pointed to it. Clark looked at Janie questioningly, but she did not want to part with such a prized possession.
“You must give me something for it,” she finally insisted through Charbonneau.
“I’ll give you a blue cloth coat,” Clark promised, and she reluctantly handed over her prized belt of blue beads.
A Clatsop chief named Cusealah offered a woman to each captain, and when they declined, the women were highly insulted. Later, the captains teased each other about their missed opportunity.
“Before I joined the Corps, I resolved to always set a perfect example for the men,” Clark said, smiling impishly at Lewis. “But my determination could break down if the Indians keep offering us women—and we must remember, turning them down is insulting to them.” He heard Lewis chuckle.
“Well, we do want the Indians to be America’s friends.” Still smiling, Lewis looked at the red-haired Clark. “I guess some people would think it our patriotic duty.”
The next morning, an old Chinook woman appeared with six daughters and nieces in tow, offering to sell their sexual services. The soldiers were eager to accommodate them. The young Indian women wore their hair loose, flowing over their shoulders and down their back. They had decorated themselves with beads hanging from their ears and around their necks, brass bracelets around their wrists, and a string with some curious kind of trinkets tied above one ankle. They had tattoos of various designs on their arms and were very proud of their appearance. The captains did not want to part with their most valuable articles, so they divided pieces of ribbon among the men to pay for the favors of the Indian lasses.
Word got out among the Clatsops that the captains would pay a high price in blue beads for sea-otter furs. That night a group came over the estuary with two robes to sell. The captains wanted the robes, but the price was too high. Clark offered his watch, a handkerchief, red beads, and a dollar in American coin, but his offer was rejected. The Indians wanted blue beads, but the captains knew that their remaining blue beads had to be preserved for more serious use.
“I guess we should have brought only blue beads with us,” Lewis said ruefully.
“Yes, if we had only known,” Clark responded, pausing for a moment before adding, “These Clatsops are more likeable than the Chinooks, don’t you agree?”
“At least they aren’t thieves,” Lewis said with a sigh. “That alone makes them more likeable.”
The honesty and affability of the Clatsops became a factor in the decision about where the expedition would spend the winter. The captains knew their supply of beads and trinkets would not last, and Chinook prices were so high that the Corps would not be able to get through the winter if they had to buy food from them. The expedition needed a sure source of meat, and the Clatsops told them that elk were plentiful in Clatsop territory. The captains wanted to remain close to the ocean so they could extract salt from seawater for seasoning as well as for preserving meat for the trip home. They also hoped that if they stayed near the ocean, a trading ship might sail into the area.
In searching for a site for camp, the expedition encountered another village of friendly Clatsops, and the captains bought roots from them. The day was rainy and cold, and the expedition passed several low, marshy islands covered with coarse grass and stunted willows. They camped in some thick woods.
“This is a gloomy goldarn country,” Shannon complained. “It’s always dismal and wet, and the sun almost never shines.”
“I think we’d better get used to it,” Thomas Howard replied. “We’re going to spend the winter here whether we like it or not. There’s no place else to go.”
Storms struck the next morning with strong wind from the northwest. Waves broke with ferocity on shore, throwing seawater into the camp of the Corps of Discovery. The men were wet and miserable as they huddled in their makeshift shelters. To add to their misery, their attempts to burn wet wood caused great clouds of smoke that irritated everyone’s eyes and breathing.
Vultures, eagles, hawks, and crows filled the sky in large numbers, while bugs, flies, spiders, and small lizards swarmed in the camp. The Corps had only a little pounded fish to eat, and their clothes were rotting on their bodies. Even so, Captain Lewis took Drouillard, Reuben Field, Shannon, Colter, and Labiche and set out in search of a suitable location for winter quarters.
They found a promising location on a small bluff rising thirty feet above the high-tide mark. It was about two hundred feet from the river and about three miles from the mouth of the Columbia River. A spring with fresh water was nearby, and there were plenty of big trees to use in building a fort. Best of all, this location promised good hunting. The scouting group liked the location.
“You know,” Lewis said to his team, “there are more than thirty of us, counting York and Sacagawea, and this will be our third winter together. Maybe I’m getting sentimental, but we have survived incredible hardships together, and it would be nice to give everyone a say about where we spend this winter.”
Back with the rest of the expedition, Clark responded to Lewis’ idea. “Well, we are a military unit. Still, I’ve never heard of a military unit that has bonded as closely as this one has. Let’s put it to a vote—including York and Sacagawea.”
The captains called the entire group together.
“We must decide where we’re going to build our fort for the winter,” Lewis began. “We could build it on the coast so we can watch for a ship and make our salt, but it’s wet and stormy by the ocean. We could build it inland under the shelter of trees. Or we could return to the Nez Perce Indians and winter where we have our horses. We want to get everyone’s opinion before making a decision.”
The issue was debated, with every person invited to offer an opinion and the reasons for it. When a vote was finally taken, the group had decided to build the fort on the site the group had found. It was inland, on the southern side of the Columbia River estuary. They were eager to get started.