As well as showing us a replica of Fort Mandan that the Corps of Discovery had built for their 5-month winter stay close to the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes and learning about these 2 tribes, the interpretive center also gave us more information of the men on the expedition. Some of the information is about what is in store for the Lewis & Clark trip as they continue on toward the Pacific Ocean, but I’ll include that information when we get to those locations.
preparing for the trip
So many supplies were needed for the trip. Here are some we may not have thought of.
Books inspired the Corps of Discovery, as well as guided its course.
While in Philadelphia, Lewis had begun compiling a small library that reflected the following subjects: geography, botany, zoology, mineralogy, astronomy, and navigation. He was a well educated man by the time he left on the trip, especially since he knew that his life, and the lives of the men he was leading, depended on him.
The popular image of a buckskin-clad Lewis and Clark wasn’t really true, because the expedition was a military operation from start to finish. President Jefferson purposefully chose the army for this significant mission. He was aware of previous civilian commercial explorations of the Missouri Valley and their failures.
As part of a military expedition, the soldiers of the Corps of Discovery were expected to wear military uniforms when necessary.
Lewis and Clark spent 215 days in North Dakota, 156 of these days were near Fort Mandan. Lewis wrote his only sustained report of the expedition while at Fort Mandan and developed significant relationships with the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.
sickness and health at Fort Mandan
As he left Fort Mandan, Lewis wrote to Jefferson that every member of the party were in good health and excellent spirits. They had weathered the cold winter with no more than the usual colds, rheumatism, pleurisy, and frostbite. They had cared for injuries coming from accidents, a dislocated shoulder, and ax cuts.
Under the guidance of Dr. Benjamin Rush from Philadelphia, Lewis bought some 30 kinds of drugs and pills, 4 syringes, sets of small surgical and dental instruments, and 2 wooden chests. For all of this Lewis paid $90.69.
Fort Mandan back to St. Louis
As the ice on the Missouri River started to break up, the keelboat was launched downstream on the same day the expedition headed west. It carried letters to President Jefferson, Clark’s journal, maps, and official reports. The cargo included Indian objects, plant and animal specimens, and 3 cages of live animals: 4 magpies, a prairie dog, and a sharp-tailed grouse.
The documents and objects sent to President Jefferson are now known as the Fort Mandan Miscellany; this collection is an important expression of the central Enlightenment purposes of the Lewis & Clark expedition.
Lewis and Clark wrote about rivers, Indian trade traditions, future trade and military garrisons, and descriptions of the Indian tribes they had met.
leaving Fort Mandan to the Pacific Ocean
“The party are in excellent health and spirits, zealously attached to the enterprise, and anxious to proceed; not a whisper of murmur or discontent to be heard among them, but all act in unison, and with the most perfect harmony.” Sounds like a great way to start off toward the west.
The expedition was packed and ready to go only 1 week after Clark recorded the last ice on the Missouri River. From Fort Mandan west, the open plains gave way to badlands, with the mountains seemingly forever in the distance.
Even in these conditions, the expedition averaged 15-20 miles a day, but they were heading into grizzly country.
American Indians warned them about grizzlies, but Lewis remained unimpressed. He thought that grizzlies posed a threat to Indians with bows and arrows, but not to men with guns.
On April 29, 1805, Lewis wrote, “We fell in with two brown . . . bear; both of which we wounded; one of them made his escape, the other after my firing on him, pursued me seventy or eighty yards, but fortunately had been so badly wounded that he was unable to pursue so closely as to prevent my charging my gun; we again repeated our fir and killed him . . . it is a much more furious and formidable anamal, and will frequently pursue the hunter when wounded.”
This wasn’t the only time the expedition faced a grizzly, and it took 8-10 shots to down the bear.
The Mandan and Hidatsa had told them of some places to look for that would be a confirmation of what they had told them. The first place to look for was the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. We’ll soon show you this place,
Next we’ll go to a re-created Mandan village so we can learn more about how the Mandan actually lived. We’ll include another rebuilt earth lodge that we saw earlier in our trip.
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