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Explorers find sage grouse in abundance Series on Web site

March 18, 2006 4:15 am

Part 65 of a series

WHILE WAITING OUT a long and wet winter at Fort Clatsop, the members of the Corps of Discovery were busy tanning hides, making clothes and moccasins, hunting, making salt and, for those who could, writing in their journals. One of the birds described by Capt. Meriwether Lewis and drawn by Capt. William Clark in his journal was the sage grouse.

Capt. Lewis wrote: "this bird is about 2/3rds the size of a turkey. the beak is large short curved and convex. the upper exceeding the lower chap [mandible], the nostrils are large and the bak [beak] black the tail is composed of 19 feathers of which that in the center is the longest, and the remaining nine on each side diminish by pairs as they receede from the center the flesh of the cock of the Plains is dark, and only tolerable in point of flavor "

From the Journals, week of Feb. 27, 1806:

FEB. 27: "Reubin Fields returned reports that there were no Elk towards point Adams. Collins who had hunted up the Netul [River] on this side returned in the evening having killed a buck Elk " --Capt. Lewis

FEB. 28: "Kuskelar a Clatsop man and his wife visited us today brought some Anchovies, Sturgeon, a beaver robe, and some roots for sail [sale] tho' they asked so high a price for every article that we purchased nothing but a part of a sturgeon for which we gave a few fishing hooks ordered hunters to return early in the morning and continue their hunt " --Capt. Lewis

MARCH 1: "We had a cloudy wet morning. I set out with 8 men and 4 hunters to bring the meat of the elk that had been killed, which was at a greater distance from the fort than any we had yet brought in. There is a large river that flows into the southeast part of Hailey's Bay; upon which about 20 miles from its mouth, our hunters discovered falls; which has about 60 feet of perpendicular pitch." --Sgt. Gass

MARCH 2: "The diet of the sick is so inferior that they recover their strength but slowly. None of them are now sick but all in a state of convalessence with keen appetities and nothing to eat except lean Elk meat The Cock of the Plains [sage grouse] is found in the plains of Columbia in great abundance " --Capt. Lewis

MARCH 3: "Two of our pirogues [canoes] have been lately injured very much in consequence of the tide leaving them partially on shore. they split by this means with their own weight. we are counting the days which separate us from the 1st of April and which bind us to fort Clatsop " --Capt. Lewis

MARCH 4: "we live sumptuously [given their daily struggle to survive with an often hand-to-mouth, less-than-plentiful diet, Capt. Lewis' use of the word "sumptuously" could be taken as being a little sarcastic] on our wappetoe [roots] and Sturgeon. The Anchovey [he means "sturgeon"] is so delicate that they soon become tainted unless pickled or smoked. the natives run a small stick through their gills and hang them in the smoke on [in] their lodges they need no previous preperation of gutting &c [etc.] and will cure in 24 hours " --Capt. Lewis

MARCH 5: " late in the evening the hunters returned had neither killed or seen any Elk informed us that the Elk had all gone off to the mountains this information reather allarming if we find that the Elk have left us, we have determined to ascend the river slowly to procure subsistence on the way, consuming the Month of March in the woody country. Earlyer than April " --Capt. Lewis

NEXT WEEK: Some elk are finally found and huge evergreen trees are described.

NOTE: The Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center in Charlottesville has a 55-foot full-scale keelboat on its property in Darden Towe Park off State Route 20 northeast of Charlottesville (Stony Point Road) adjacent to the Rivanna River. It has also embarked on a fundraising campaign to create a hands-on center for children of all ages to participate in Lewis and Clark's adventures. Every third Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon a boat-building workshop is being held next to the keelboat barn. For details, visit lewisandclarkeast.org.

BILL SPEIDEN of Orange County serves on the board of directors of the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center in Charlottesville. Contact him by phone at 540/672-2596, or e-mail
Email: oxpwr@yahoo.com.