Can you believe that we’re actually at the last place where the Corps of Discovery stayed over the winter of 1805-1806 before they started back home? In this post we’ll be looking at the information in the National Park’s museum here at Fort Clatsop, walking through the replica of Fort Clatsop, seeing where the salt works was that they set up on the coast, away from the fresh water of the Columbia River, and learning about the whale that was beached on the sand. It was really hard to say good-bye to the Corps of Discovery and leave Fort Clatsop.
December 8, 1805 – March 23, 1806. “The shelter they constructed was a square fort measuring fifty feet on each side, with a row of rooms along two facing sides and a parade ground in the middle. A palisade formed both the real wall and the gated front wall. They named the encampment Fort Clatsop in honor of the local Indians.”
“By Christmas the fort was nearly complete, and the Corps held a celebration that included exchanging gifts. The day, like most of those preceding it, was, according to Clark, ‘showery wet and disagreeable.’ More of the same in store. Although the temperatures were moderate, the rainfall was not. From November 4 until March 24, only twelve days were without rain, and six of those were cloudy.”
“By the time the explorers had arrived at the Pacific, their supply of salt was nearly gone. They needed salt not only to make their food more palatable, but more important, to preserve meat on the return trip, so during the winter the captains ordered some of the men to establish a salt-making operation on the coast.”
“Lewis and Clark spent much of the time working on their journals and maps and making plans for the return journey. The fort was often visited by Indians of the area—Clatsops, Chinooks, and Cathlamets—who usually brought food and furs to trade.”
“All winter, Lewis and Clark had hoped to encounter a trade ship from which they could obtain supplies and replenish their trade goods, but none was every sighted. [They didn’t realized that the trade ships never came this far north during the winter months because the storms were so bad.] They’d have to live off the land on the way home. [Hard to do until they got to the Plains and the bison.]
but first some information from in front of the National Park Service building
This post will cover these places:
- Fort Clatsop
- #5 where the salt makers made camp
- #6 where a beached whale provided them with oil and blubber
The river was an important source of transportation. It allowed access around the dense forests and wetlands. Lofty trees: The explorers found an abundance of hemlock, spruce, fir, and cedar for building the Fort and for use as firewood. Roosevelt Elk: The explorers’ hunted Roosevelt Elk to supply the expedition with food, clothing, bedding, and candles.
So what is Roosevelt elk? Wikipedia tells us, “The Roosevelt elk, also known commonly as the Olympic elk and Roosevelt’s wapiti, is the largest of the four surviving subspecies of elk in North America by body mass. Mature bulls weigh from 700 to 1,200 lb, with very rare large bulls weighing more. Its geographic range includes temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest including parts of northern California.”
Now we know why these elk were so important to the expedition.
In addition to what we’ve learned about how Lewis and Clark spent their time, they reached a level of detail in their journals and maps that could contribute to fields of study for centuries to come.
Moccasins often wore out after a couple of weeks. Sergeant Gass recorded 338 pairs were made at Fort Clatsop; roughly 10 pairs per explorer for the home trip.
Clark’s maps were later discovered to be nearly as accurate as any created today.
As Captain Clark described on December 9, 1805: “was invited to a lodge by a young Chief was treated great Politeness, we had new mats to Set on, and himself and wife produced for us to eate, fish, Lickorish & black roots . . . when I was disposed to go to Sleep 2 neet mats was produced . . . .”
Captain Clark recorded that the Clatsop made their canoes “remarkably neat light and well adapted for riding high waves,” were “great higlers” and tite Deelers” in trade and appeared of a “mild disposition and friendly disposed.”
The Clatsop people were familiar with traders arriving from the west in ships loaded with trade goods during warmer summer months. These newcomers were different.
By constructing a fortification, they laid claim to the Clatsop homeland and established rules about who could visit and when.
Their heavy and cumbersome dugout canoes were difficult to maneuver and unstable in the wind and rough water conditions of the mouth of the Columbia River. The explorers often hugged the shores of the river due to the inability of their seamanship.
During their 106 days at Fort Clatsop, Captains Lewis and Clark collected many specimens and recorded detailed notes. While the Clatsop and Chinookan people know the local flora well, the captains wrote the first detailed descriptions, accompanied by illustrations, in their journals.
wintering at Fort Clatsop
The men built huts to protect themselves and their supplies and named it “Fort Clatsop.” Nothing remains of the original fort. This 2006 replica is based on Clark’s journal descriptions and floor plan.
Three sergeants and twenty-four men squeezed into three small enlisted men’s quarters and the orderly room.
Clark’s slave, York, may have lived in the orderly room.
inside the National Park Service museum
We found some interesting displays in the museum that we thought you might like to see. First are models of the 3 different forts that the Corps built. Interesting that these forts are so different.
On January 1,1806, Lewis wrote, “Any individual . . . borrowing the tools [is] strictly required to bring the same back the moment he has ceased to use them. . . . Any individual selling or disposing of any tool or iron or steel instrument, arms, accoutrements or ammunicion, shall be . . . tryed and punished accordingly.”
Per AI, “William Clark’s first wife was Julia Hancock, whom he married on January 5, 1808, when she was 16 and he was 37; after her death in 1820, he married her cousin Harriet Kennerly Radford in 1821.” He had four sons and one daughter with Julia and two sons and one daughter with Harriet. He named his first son after his friend, Meriwether Lewis.
From the photographic journey book, on May 29, 1805, the Corps came across a river in Montana, and Lewis wrote, “The water of this river is clearer much tan any we have met. . . . Captain Clark . . . has thought proper to call it Judith’s River.” He had met her a year or so before the expedition when she was 11 or 12 and her cousin Harriet was 14. If you want to read more about this love story, you may want to check out The Two Wives of William Clark by the writing team called Frances Hunter .
From what I read in Undaunted Courage, Lewis never married, even though he had some romantic relationships with various women since he wanted the life that he saw his friend William Clark had.
Fort Clatsop
After we walked around the fort, we went inside the museum and enjoyed what it had to show us. Then we wanted another look at the fort because it would be our last time with the Corps of Discovery until they started home.
The back wall had an opening so the men could get to the spring for fresh water.
salt camp
By the time the expedition made it to the coast, they were out of salt, which they needed for preserving their meat and making it taste better. A salt camp needed to be made along the coast to create this salt from the ocean water.
On December 10, 1805, Clark wrote about getting to the coast, “The Sea Coast is about 7 miles distant. Nearly West about 5 miles of the distance through a thick wood with reveens hills and Swampa the land, rich black moald [soil] 2 miles in an open waving Sandy prarie, ridge running parrelal to the river, Covered with Green Grass.”
In early 1806, members of the Lewis and Clark expedition camped near several Clatsop and Tillamook plankhouses. Their goal was to produce salt for preserving meat and improving their bland diet. They traveled down the coast from Fort Clatsop to find salt water not diluted by the Columbia River. They continued south and established a camp with wood to burn, fresh water to drink, and elk to hunt.
After seven weeks of effort they produced 28 gallons of salt that Captain Lewis found to be “excellent, fine, strong & white, this was a great treat to myself and most of the party.” Looks like the local natives were watching as the men did their work.
Here’s what this placard has to say about this cairn, which is a pile of stones:
On January 2, 1806, the salt works was established by the three “salt makers” of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Joseph Fields, William Bratten, and George Gibson, who remained here until February 30, 1806. These men, assisted at times by hunters and packers, were able during this period to tediously extract approximately four bushels of salt by boiling seawater day and night in five metal “kittles.”
This actual site was established by a committee of the Oregon Historical Society in 1900, on the testimony of Jenny Michel, of Seaside, whose Clatsop Indian father remembered seeing the white men boiling water and had pointed out this place to her when she was a young girl. She was born in this vicinity about 1816 and died in 1905.
a whale
From Undaunted Courage, “One welcome change in diet came on January 10. Four days earlier, Clark had set out in canoes with a party of eleven to find the whale that had washed ashore south of the salt camp. Among the party was Sacagawea. In a charming passage, Lewis explained how she got to go along: ‘The Indian woman was very impotunate to be permitted to go, and was therefore indulged; she observed that she had traveled a long way with us to see the great waters, and that now that monstrous fish was also to be seen, she thought it very hard she could not be permitted to see either. . . .'”
“When Clark returned, he brought back three hundred pounds of blubber and a few gallons of rendered oil. He had hoped for much more, but the carcass had been stripped by the time he arrived, and he had to buy what he got from the natives.”
“But soon the whale blubber and oil were gone. It was back to elk. Lewis wrote on February 7: ‘This evening we had what I call an excellent supper it consisted of a marrowbone a piece and a brisket of boiled Elk that had the appearance of a little fat on it. This for Fort Clatsop is living in high stile.'”
Some Clatsops reported a dead whale on a beach near Killamox village south of the salt makers’ camp. Eager to see and describe this symbol of the great ocean, Clark set out with a small party to investigate. On January 5, Clark wrote, “I determine to Set out . . . in quest of the whale, or at all events to purchase from the indians a parcel of the blubber . . .”
On January 8, 1806, Clark continued writing, “. . . found only the Skelleton of this monster on the Sand. . . . measured 105 feet. . . . found the nativs busily engaged boiling the blubber, which they performed in a large Squar wooden trough by means of hot Stones . . .”
“. . . with the Small Stock of merchindize I had taken with me [we] were not able to precure more blubber than about 300 [lbs] and a fiew gallons of oil; Small as this stock is I prise it highly; and thank providence for directing the whale to us . . .”
saying good-bye?
Are you ready to say good-bye to the Corps of Discovery? Before we say our final good-bye, we’ll walk through the interpretive center at Cape Disappointment for a wonderful overview of the entire expedition. First, though, we’ll take you along as we gosauntering home for almost seven weeks before we get back to Alpharetta.
When we get home we’ll finish off the expedition’s trip from this interpretive center that we think you’ll find interesting, and then we’ll look at the expedition’s trip home.
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