What's Out There?

For 28 months Meriwether Lewis and William Clark searched for a water route across the unchartered American west.  They endured months of cold, weeks of hunger and fatigue from days of backbreaking labor on the prairie.  Their party of 26 soldiers and one civilian were harassed by Indians all along the way.

The Corps of Discovery, as they were called, trained for months for survival in the wilderness.  They lost only one man to probable appendicitis.

On May 14, 1804 Lewis began from Camp Dubois, outside of St. Louis.  Clark joined him at St. Charles days later.  With a 55 foot long keelboat and 2 pirogues (long canoes), they left civilization behind to travel up the Missouri River. It proved to be a nightmare of sandbars, obstacles, changing currents and changing river banks.

Clark was the navigator, Lewis the journalist.  By July they had arrived at Council Bluffs and had their first Indian encounter.  Ottos, Omahas, and Missouri were given medals from President Jefferson and urged to live in peace with the white man.  President Jefferson was known as the "Great White Father in Washington".

Next time...clash with the Tetons.
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Today in Pioneer History: " On December 10, 1830, Emily Dickinson is born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Dickinson was a witty and popular student but was viewed as somewhat unconventional. She rarely left Amherst,  preferring her home, her stern lawyer father, invalid mother, spinster sister, and domineering brother as her family life. Dickinson had only one romance that is known about today, with Judge Otis Lord. who people thought she might marry but the romance ended."

Until We Meet Again...

When Captain Walker and Benjamin Bonneville met up again on Bear River in the summer of 1834 supplies from St. Louis were waiting for them.  The two planned their operations for the next year amid a good feeling of plenty.

Bonneville would make his fall hunt on the Columbia River with 50 men, while Captain Walker would go across the Rockies to the Missouri River with 55 men.  Unknown to them was the next time they met would be along the Big Horn exactly a year later in July 1835.

Walker's men trapped successfully across the Rockies along the Yellowstone and Big Horn River (the region was called Absaroka, the home of the Crow Indians).  For the winter Walker divided up his men and took most of them to Wind River to camp and set up a trading post 60-70 miles east of the Continental Divide. 

Next time...A Good Winter