Parting with Lewis at Travelers’ Rest, Clark leads a large group back to the Beaverhead River to pick up the supplies and canoes cached there. At the Three Forks of the Missouri, Sgt. Ordway continues down the Missouri to join Sgt. Gass at the Great Falls of the Missouri. Clark travels by horse to the Yellowstone and continues downriver to find cottonwood trees large enough to make canoes.
After making two small canoes, Clark tasks Sgt. Pryor to take the horses to the Knife River Villages. Crow Indians steal all the horses, and Pryor’s group makes two bull boats, in which they journey down the Yellowstone. Everyone reunites on the Missouri River several miles below present-day Williston, North Dakota.
For Lewis’s return journey, see On the Road to the Buffalo and Lewis on the Marias.
Synopsis Part 5
Fort Clatsop to St. Louis
by Harry W. Fritz
On 23 March 1806, once again battling the rising spring runoff, as it had each of the two previous years on the Missouri, the Corps of Discovery started up the Columbia River towards home.
Dividing Forces at Travelers’ Rest
Their daring tactical plan
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Dividing into as many as five separate details was part of a bold, diplomatic plan to achieve three of the objectives set by President Jefferson.
Big Hole to Three Forks
Sacagawea points to home
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Sacagawea informed Clark that “she had been in this plain frequently and knew it well,” that the creek they were following was a branch of the Big Hole River, and that “when we assended the higher part of the plain we would discover a gap in the mountains”
Stolen Horses
Crow horse culture
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Robert N. Bergantino
Pryor and six privates had successfully driven forty-one horses all the way to the Yellowstone Valley, apparently without any trouble. Then, smoke on the horizon. Twenty-four horses stolen on the twentieth. Seventeen taken on the twenty-fifth.
July 8, 1806
Happy returns
Clark’s group returns to Fortunate Camp and opens a cache of tobacco. Lewis passes Haystack Butte and returns to the Missouri River plains. Ordway‘s group returns stray horses in the Big Hole Valley.
July 13, 1806
Two groups become three
At the Falls of the Missouri, Lewis finds last year’s cache has flooded. At the headwaters of the Missouri, Sgt. Ordway takes the canoes down the Missouri, and Clark heads up the Gallatin River valley by horse.
Finding the Yellowstone
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Rick Newby
As he started over the mountains at today’s Bozeman they observed several Indian and buffalo roads heading northeast across the mountains. Clark reported, “the indian woman who has been of great Service to me as a pilot through this Country recommends a gap.”
Crow Signs
Smoke signals a discovery
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“This smoke must be raisd. by the Crow Indians in that direction as a Signal for us, or other bands. I think it most probable that they have discovered our trail.”
Yellowstone Canoe Camp
by Joseph A. Mussulman
One week and a hundred miles after starting down the Yellowstone River, Clark finally found cottonwood trees large enough for building canoes. That night some Indians made off with half their horses.
July 21, 1806
A spate of missing horses
On the Yellowstone, half of Clark’s horses appear to be stolen by Crow Indians. Above the Falls of the Missouri, missing horses delay the portage. On the Marias, Lewis turns up Cut Bank Creek.
Clark’s Crow Indian Speech
A speech never given
by Joseph A. Mussulman
While stinging from having so many of his horses stolen, Clark wrote a speech to the Crow Indians imploring them to return the booty. After all, he needed those horses to complete the captain’s bold diplomatic plan.
July 24, 1806
Pryor's mission begins
Clark’s group paddles 70 miles down the Yellowstone while Sgt. Pryor leaves for the Knife River Villages with the horses. Lewis remains at Camp Disappointment and at the Great Falls, the portage continues.
Crossing the Yellowstone
Parting ways
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Pryor was to proceed downriver to the mouth of the Bighorn River, where Clark, with the canoes, would help him and his detail across the Yellowstone to its south bank. But they happened upon a good fording place at today’s Billings, and seized the opportunity.
Pompeys Pillar
Pompy's Tower
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 25 July 1806, Clark and his contingent of nine men, plus York, Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea, and little Jean Baptiste, arrived at “a remarkable rock Situated in an extensive bottom, on the Star[boar]d. [south] Side of the river.”
Trail Graffiti
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Members of the Lewis and Clark expedition carved, burned, or painted their names or initials and the dates when they did so, more than fourteen times according to the journals. They were practicing what had long been European explorers’ legitimate means for claiming dominion over other people’s land.
The Yellowstone Badlands
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Around midday he passed the mouth of a tributary “40 yards wid Shallow and muddy,” the banks of which can be faintly discerned near the horizon in the picture, and identified it as the stream the Mandan chief Sheheke had called Oak-tar-pon-er.
The Lower Yellowstone
A promising location
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 30 July 1806 Clark and his party camped near the mouth of the War har sah, or Powder River. He summarized the Yellowstone’s attractions, directing most of his attention toward opportunities for immediate expansion of the fur trade.
August 1, 1806
Waiting for buffalo
On the Yellowstone, Clark waits for a large herd of buffalo to cross. On the Missouri, Lewis passes the Musselshell River while Pryor’s group tries to catch up to Clark. Everybody is slowed by the weather.
August 8, 1806
Sgt. Pryor catches up
In the morning, Pryor arrives at Clark’s camp having paddled two bull boats down the Yellowstone River. Lewis sets up a camp near present-day Williston to make clothes, repair boats, hunt, and make jerky.
Reunion
Lewis and Pryor catch up
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After splitting up into five separate details over five weeks earlier, all the members of the Corps of Discovery were finally reunited 142 miles downriver from the mouth of the Yellowstone.
Mapping the Yellowstone
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark’s map of 1814 shows his post-expeditionary conclusions regarding the lay of the land from just west of the Three Forks of the Missouri River, roughly 230 air miles eastward along the Yellowstone to the Tongue River.
Wheeler on the Yellowstone
Bozeman Pass and Pompeys Pillar
by Barbara Fifer, Joseph A. Mussulman
In 1902, Wheeler followed the Northern Pacific’s course over Bozeman Pass and the Yellowstone River promoting both the railroad and the Lewis and Clark Centennial.
