CHAPTER 5
Pushing Off

On April 7, 1805, seven soldiers, five boatmen, and an Indian guide headed back down the Missouri River in the keelboat. They were to deliver cargo to President Jefferson and his scientists. This would be the first news that Jefferson received from the expedition. On board were reports, letters, maps, charts, rocks, plants, fur robes, Indian tools and weapons, animal skeletons, antlers, and horns. A live prairie dog and magpie were also making the trip. No one back east would have ever seen a prairie dog or a magpie.

On that same day, thirty-three members of the Corps boarded the red pirogue and six dugout canoes that had been hollowed out over the winter. Sacagawea, with Pomp, her husband, and a few other men, rode in the white pirogue. The Corps left Fort Mandan and headed west on the Missouri River.

One day, a squall blew up, and the white pirogue heeled over. Sacagawea quickly snatched Pomp from his cradle bundle and handed him to her husband. She knew what she had to do next. Papers, letters, journals, a medicine kit, and instruments had fallen into the water. Luckily, they had all been packed in watertight bags.

Sacagawea knew the bags were important to Lewis and Clark. She grabbed whatever she could reach that came floating by. In the end, everything was saved. It was one of the many times Sacagawea proved her importance to the Corps. Lewis praised Sacagawea for her bravery and cool head.

Grizzly Bears

Grizzly bears presented another danger. They were a new and fearsome enemy. A full-grown male grizzly bear could weigh as much as one thousand pounds. When standing on his hind feet he was more than six feet tall. Some bear tracks were almost a foot long. These reddish-brown bears were nothing like the bears that the Corps members had encountered back east. Because of their silver-tipped hair, the Indians called them white bears. When Indians hunted grizzlies, they dressed and painted for war.

Once a terrified Corps member shot and wounded a grizzly that chased him for half a mile. Luckily, the soldier was saved when Lewis killed the bear with a shot to his head. Only a bullet to the head or heart would kill a grizzly.

Another time, six soldiers saw a full-grown male grizzly. When two of their shots hit the bear’s lungs, he charged. Two more shots struck the wounded bear. Still, he kept coming. Two of the soldiers jumped in the river to escape the bear’s fury. But the bear jumped in and swam after them. He had almost reached the two men when a man on shore shot and finally killed him.

In his journal, Lewis summed up his thoughts: “I . . . had reather fight 2 Indians than one bear.”