blackfoot-valley

writers (notably, Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1996 book “Undaunted Courage”) that they need no repetition here, other than a brief comment on its signifi- cance to the growing American nation, plus some notes of regional and local interest. Lewis and Clark’s party of thiry-odd men (and Sacajawea, the Shoshoni woman engaged as interpreter and guide) did not - and as they would dis- cover, could not - meet its objective of finding a navigable route with an easy portage across the western mountains, which effectively ended the search for the Northwest Passage that had been carried on since the time of Columbus. Yet, Lewis and Clark not only explored and defined a huge unknown terri- tory, but established an American presence which, along with Captain Gray’s discovery of the Columbia, was to be instrumental to secure a prior and para- mont American claim on the southern and more productive half of Oregon Country (including today’s Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, and part of Wyoming) against competing British claims - which was to make the United States a continental nation stretching from coast to coast. The expedi- tion stimulated American settlement that eventually would make the prairies and plains one of the primary breadbaskets of the world - although, Indian societies could be forgiven for regarding this with less than warm feelings. On the return trip, the expedition separated into two parties at a place Lewis and Clark called Traveler’s Rest - where Lolo creek joins the Bitterroot River, ten miles south of present Missoula. Lewis and nine men would head overland on horseback to find a direct route across the mountains, and after crossing them would explore the Missouri’s northern tributary, the Marias. Clark turned southward with the larger party, including Sacajawea, first roughly retracing with shortcuts the roundabout route along the Bitterroots they had taken on the outbound journey the previous year, to the place on the upper Jefferson River where they left their canoes, and paddling down- stream to the Three Forks (formed by the meeting of the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers, all named the previous year by Lewis, and which combine to form the Missouri). There, Clark’s party was split into two parts, Clark with ten men plus Sacajawea and her infant striking overland across the Missouri / Yellowstone divide to find the Yellowstone River and build canoes to explore its course downstream. The other ten-man party led by Sergeant Ordway continued down the now-familiar Missouri to rejoin Lewis’s party below the Great Falls. At this stage, there were three widely separated parties, none with over ten men. They agreed to reunite downstream where the Yellow- stone flows into the Missouri. 60