Remembering the Appalachian range, Lewis and Clark had expected to cross the Rockies easily. They envisioned a single mountain range with many open gaps and easy passage routes. Instead, they faced endless chains of mountains and heard Chief Cameahwait tell of impassable rivers whose “whole surface was beat into perfect foam.” Because the Salmon River was impassable, their only recourse was to acquire more horses, hire a guide, and proceed over the mountains. Negotiating with the Indians along the way was close to impossible.
Compare the mountain ranges shown on these maps. The top map is one Clark drew before they crossed the Rockies. He pictured the mountains to be a single range.
Lewis and Clark have had to communicate with about 50 Indian tribes along the way that spoke many different languages and dialects.
For many negotiations, the captains turned to George Drouillard who was fluent in Indian sign language. Sign language, the most universal language available, enabled different tribes to converse. The gestures could also be seen at a distance or used when silence was critical.
But with the Shoshone, they were able to use these men and Sacagawea for negotiating with her brother, Chief Cameahwait, for these horses and a guide.
Lewis started the conversation by talking to Charbonneau (the husband) who spoke to Labiche (the private) who spoke to Sacagawea who spoke to Cameahwait.
Meriwether Lewis wore the tippet Cameahwait presented him. This short cape of otter skin and ermine was “the most eligent piece of Indian dress” Lewis had ever seen.
Toussaint Charbonneau, French-Canadian husband of Sacagawea, was born near Montreal about 1758. He would have been 47 when the expedition started out in 1805. He had been a trader for North West Fur Company and had lived with the Hidatsa people about eight years.
Francois Labiche, a private who was half French and have Omaha Indian, was enlisted in St. Charles, Missouri, [the beginning of the trip] because of his skill as a boatman and interpreter.
Sacagawea, a native Shoshone, was at last fulfilling the reson for which she had been brought on the journey—negotiating with her people for horses. The reunion with her brother was an unexpected bonus for everyone.
Cameahwait was anxious to help Lewis and Clark because they promised guns and ammunition. His enemies were already well-armed, and he could not pass up this opportunity.
Then Cameahwait to Sacagawea to Labriche (the private) to Charbonneau (the husband) to Lewis.
Sacagawea to Labiche, “My brother says he will trade horses for guns.”
Labriche to Charbonneau, “Captain, they will only trade for guns.”
Charbonneau to Lewis, “The chief will give horses if you give guns.”
Conclusion: The Chief will get his guns in the future, and Lewis will get his horses now.
Can you imagine how hard this would have had to be and how long it would have taken? It would have been so easy for the message to be misunderstood as it went in both directions.
over the land to the mountains
Clark wrote the word “Portage” on his field map to indicate today’s Lemhi Pass. His finished version did not use this term.
On August 29, Lewis and the main expedition, aided by Shoshone Indians, left the canoes at Camp Fortunate and departed for the headwaters of the Columbia River. They camped 3 miles west of here the next night and then followed Trail Creek 9 miles to the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass.
Lewis and Clark did not find navigable water and big trees for canoes until they reached the Clearwater River in Northern Idaho in late September 1805. We’ll show you that area in a future post.
In 1805 and 1806, Lewis and Clark followed ancient Indian roads across the Rocky Mountains. Help from the Indian tribes in the mountains proved essential to the expedition.
Lewis and Clark greeted Indian tribes with a diplomatic message of peace. Yet they were harbingers of future hardship, persecution, and loss for Indian people in the West. White settlers flooded into the country, treaties were made and broken, and Indian lands were taken.
Lewis’s and Clark’s route
One of the “clifts” Lewis described as they were going through this area was Red Butte, visible to your right from here.
the beginnings of the “Endless Missouri”
On August 12, 1805, Lewis wrote, “. . . two miles below McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri.”
We started following the Missouri River on June 2 in St. Louis, and today is August 2. We made it in 3 months.
Lemhi Pass
August 12, 1805. “The explorers moved on a short distance [from the stream that started the Missouri River], and at the top of a ridge they beheld an enormous mountain range. Its towering, snow-covered peaks lined the western horizon as far as the eye could see—a sight Lewis was not prepared for. He must have been distressed; after all they had been through, they still had to face crossing this massive obstacle.” (quote from our photographic journal)
Lewis, George Drouillard, Hugh McNeal, and John Shields crossed the Continental Divide here on August 12, 1805, in advance of the main expedition. They left the headwaters of the Missouri and entered the upper Columbia River Basin. Lemhi Pass at 7373 feet is the highest elevation on the westward route of Louis and Clark.
Later, after five weeks of arduous travel through the rugged Rocky Mountains, they learned this was not the Northwest Passage they sought.
While we’re at the border of two states, In 1805, it was a boundary between nations. British and U.S. interests were racing to occupy the Pacific Northwest, wanting control of the valuable trade routes and commerce in the region.
On August 12, 1805, Lewis wrote, “The road was still plain, I therefore did not dispair of shortly finding a passage over the mountains and of taisting the waters of the great Columbia this evening.
Two days before reaching the Continental Divide, Lewis speculated that the Columbia River would not have the same moderate character as the Missouri. He wrote on August 10, 1805, “If the Columbia furnishes us such another example, a communication across the continent by water will be practicable and safe, but this I can scarcely hope from a knowledge of its having in it comparatively short course to the ocean the same number of feet to decend which the Missouri and Mississippi have from this point to the Gulph of Mexico.”
Almost straight down the Rocky Mountains was the Salmon River, Canoe Camp, The Dalles, and the Pacific Ocean, which we’ll see later.
North America’s Rocky Mountains split the waters of the continent. To the east, the Missouri-Mississippi River system rolls placidly through the plains to the Gulf of Mexico. To the west, the Columbia River system roars to the Pacific through deep, narrow canyons filled with whitewater rapids.
The circle on the bottom right is Camp Fortunate.
The yellow circle in the middle is Lemhi Pass.
The circle in the middle is the Lost Trail Pass that the expedition took.
It took the expedition 12 days to travel from three forks to Camp Fortunate. From Camp Fortunate to over the Rockies took them 17 days as they went back and forth before setting off with the horses and the Shoshone. It only took us a few hours to drive from three forks to where we stayed in Dillon, and then only a couple of hours to drive to Camp Fortunate and then on to the Lemhi Pass. My how times change.
In the next post we’ll talk about this Lost Trail Pass, the Bitterroot Valley they rode through, and Travelers’ Rest where they stayed for a few days.
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.