Joseph Mussulman
Marc A. Hefty photo.
Photo by Bill Bevis.
Left to right: Two concerned dugout canoe owners, one concerned expert paddler, and Joe grinning with delight
Joseph A. Mussulman (1928–2017) was the founding producer, editor and writer for Discovering Lewis & Clark. After five years of preparation and experimentation the website went online in 1998, under the auspices of a non-profit entity called VIAs Inc., and funded by grants from various sources, especially–throughout the bicentennial observance from 2003 to 2006–the Challenge Cost Share Program of the National Park Service. In 2009 the site was taken over by the Lewis & Clark Fort Mandan Foundation of Washburn, North Dakota.
Dr. Mussulman earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music history and literature at Northwestern University in 1950 and 1951. As a Danforth Scholar he earned a doctorate in humanities from Syracuse University in 1967.
He has written and produced a number of interpretive programs in collaboration with audio specialist Richard H. Kuschel, also of Missoula Montana. In 1986, he wrote, narrated, and co-produced a multimedia presentation for the Blaine County Museum (MT) titled Forty Miles from Freedom, about the Non-Treaty Nez Perce Indians’ final battle with the U.S. Army, at the Bear Paw Mountains in 1877. In 2012-13 Mussulman and Kuschel revised the 20-minute onsite production and updated it in High Definition video. In 1994 their interactive self-guided audio-CD tour of Yellowstone National Park, a five-hour program produced for Tour Technologies, Inc., received first prize in the category of media productions from the National Association for Interpretation. Their Two Days to Destiny, an audio interpretive tour of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, won first place from the NAI in 1995.
Mussulman is the author of five articles on Lewis and Clark that appeared in We Proceeded On, the official journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, Inc.: “My Boy Pomp’: About That Name,” Vol. 21, No. 2 (May 1995); “Soundscapes: The Sonic Dimensions of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” Vol. 21, No. 4 (November 1995); “Men in High Spirits: Humor on the Lewis and Clark Trail,” Vol.22, No. 2 (May 1996); “‘In Greatest Harmoney’: ‘Meddicine Songs’ on the Lewis and Clark Trail,” Vol. 23, No. 4 (November 1997); and “Pomp’s bier was a bar,” Vol. 27, No. 1 (February 2001).
Dr. Mussulman has designed and produced maps for various books, brochures and study guides about Lewis and Clark, including 58 full-color maps illustrating the expedition’s entire route from coast to coast for the travelers’ guide, Along the Trail with Lewis and Clark, by Barbara Fifer and Vicky Soderberg (2nd ed., Helena: Montana Magazine, 2001). Those maps also appeared in the same publisher’s annual Lewis and Clark Travel Planner and Guide. They may be seen in Discovering Lewis & Clark at Discovering Lewis & Clark from the Air. In 1998, he created a poster illustrating the trail from Washington, D.C. to the Pacific, for Farcountry Press.
His other publications include a biography, Dear People . . . Robert Shaw (Indiana University Press,1979; reprint, Chapel Hill, NC: Hinshaw Music, 1996), and Music in the Cultured Generation (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974). From 1987 through 1998 he was the interpretive writer and designer of Montana Afloat, a series of sixteen maps of Montana’s major floatable rivers.
Dr. Mussulman was a 1999 recipient of a Montana Governor’s Arts Award. Several years later he received an award of meritorious achievement from the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation “for outstanding contributions in bring to this nation a greater awareness and appreciation of the Lewis and Clark expedition.” In 2005, he received the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award.
Contributions to this Site
Shipping the Supplies
Quartermaster Lewis
by Frank Muhly, Joseph A. Mussulman
Considering all he had to do to prepare for the expedition, Lewis was fortunate in that he could rely on a small cadre of Army personnel to help him assemble, pack, and ship his supplies.
Salmon
Four 'new' species
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark observed and described four fish belonging to the Salmonid family that were previously unknown to scientists, and that were basic foods for thousands upon thousands of Indians west of the Rockies.
Decision Point by Air
At the mouth of the Marias
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In the late afternoon of Sunday, 2 June 1805, the Corps of Discovery “came too on the Lard. side in a handsome bottom of small cottonwood timber opposite to the entrance of a very considerable river.” They now faced a crucial question: Which river was the Missouri?
Harvesting the Hunt
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After the animal is shot, the work begins: field dressing, hauling the meat to camp, butchering, and preserving the extra meat for future meals.
End of the Enlightenment
Anti calomel and the "genteel tradition"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
No more calomel! Not just an anthem, a reflection on the transition from the “Age of Enlightenment” to the “genteel tradition.”
Mapping the Road to the Buffalo
Clark's interpretation of Lewis's shortcut
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark produced this map of Lewis’s route sometime after the Corps was reunited on 12 August 1806, near today’s New Town, North Dakota.
Eastern Gray Squirrel
Scuirus carolinensis
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis wrote a description of the eastern gray squirrel, the first of his natural history observations, on 11 September 1803, twelve days after he left Pittsburgh on his voyage down the Ohio.
Recognizing Divine Providence
Did they pray?
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Did they pray? The answer is yes, they did—to invoke the catch-phrase their journalists sometimes used to generalize about the habits of others—”in their way.”
Holidays at Fort Clatsop
by Joseph A. Mussulman
At dawn the captains were roused, according to Clark, by “the discharge of the fire arm[s] of all our party & a Selute, Shoute and a Song which the whole party joined in under our windows, after which they retired to their rooms [and] were Chearfull all the morning.”
Columbian Black-Tailed Deer
Odocoileus hemionus columbianus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis’s conviction that the “black tailed fallow deer of the coast” and the “common fallow deer” were two distinct species was sufficient to urge later investigators to try to clarify them.
Bivouac at Tongue Point
A long and wet encampment
by Joseph A. Mussulman
As the Corps rounded Tongue Point the wind rose hard from the west, and heavy seas with torrential rain forced them back to the east shore of the narrow isthmus, where they huddled for ten miserable days.
St. Charles
Petites Côtes
by Joseph A. Mussulman
With Captain Clark in sole command, the Corps of Volunteers for North Western Discovery left the mouth of Wood River on 14 May 1804. The flotilla was comprised of the barge and two pirogues. Clark and the men “proceeded on under a jentle brease,” bound for St. Charles.
Yellowstone Mouth by Air
"Long wished for spot"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“I ascended the hills,” Lewis wrote, “from whence I had a most pleasing view of the country, particularly of the wide and fertile vallies formed by the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers.”
The Marias River Risk
"Of highest national importance"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Why was it so important that Meriwether Lewis was willing to risk his life in a region occupied by the “Pahkees” or Minnetares, the Assiniboines, and other people whom he had been led—by their enemies, of course—to believe were “vicious and illy disposed”?
Omaha-Council Bluffs
Nobody home
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 23 July 1804, the captains sent Drouillard and Cruzatte to an Otoe Indian village to invite the chiefs to come hear of the change of national allegiance from Spain to the United States and to learn “the wishes of our Government to Cultivate friendship with them.”
Fort Clatsop Today
Reconstructing the fort
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Today’s Fort Clatsop stands at or near the site of the Corps’ winter encampment of 1805-06 was built on the same floor plan that Clark drew on the cover of the Elkskin-covered Journal. The rest of the present structure resembles the original only in a remote sense.
Jerking Meat
Preserving meat without refrigeration
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Kristopher K. Townsend
What did the captains mean when they say they stopped to jerk their meat? At the time of the expedition “jerk” simply stood for “dried meat.” This article includes a recipe.
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.
Sweet Grass
Hierochloe odorata
by Joseph A. Mussulman
For thousands of years sweet grass has been used as incense in spiritual and religious ceremonies, as a personal perfume, and braided into necklaces and bracelets for wearing as amulets to ward off illness and injury.
Mountain Beavers
Aplodontia rufa (Sewelel)
by Joseph A. Mussulman
This secretive, primitive little rodent, which somewhat resembles the woodchuck and the muskrat, belongs to the same mammalian order, Rodentia, as the beaver, Castor canadensis, but otherwise they have nothing in common.
Pryor Creek
Ill-fated mission
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The stream Clark named for Nathaniel Pryor meanders from its montane sources in the mountain range that now bears Pryor’s name to join the Yellowstone River in the area where Pryor began his ill-fated diplomatic mission.
Jerusalem Artichokes
Helianthus tuberosus
by Joseph A. Mussulman, Kristopher K. Townsend
The French explorer Samuel de Champlain found the vegetable growing in Indian gardens along the Saint Lawrence seaway and carried specimens of it back to France in 1603, where its root soon became a staple food for humans.
Fortunate Camp
Western road
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Today the confluence of the Beaverhead River and Horse Prairie Creek is submerged at left of the large island (photo center) in Clark Canyon reservoir, beneath eighty feet of water when the reservoir is full.
Arrival at the Pacific
Exploring Long Beach
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark was pleased that his men appeared “much Satisfied with their trip beholding with estonishment the high waves dashing against the rocks & this emence ocean.”
The Salmon River by Air
"Gloomey Picture"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
In the four days between 21 and 24 August 1805, Clark explored fifty-two miles down the Salmon River (he named it Lewis’s River) from today’s North Fork, Idaho. All he saw was a continuous series of rapids.
Jefferson’s Monticello
Source and paradigm
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After some eight months of planning and discussion, President Thomas Jefferson handed his twenty-eight-year-old secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, a letter containing instructions for the conduct of one of the most significant undertakings in American history.
Climbing Wendover Ridge
Leaving the Lochsa
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“Several horses Sliped and roled down Steep hills which hurt them verry much The one which Carried my desk & Small trunk Turned over & roled down a mountain for 40 yards & lodged against a tree, broke the Desk…”
Coal Mines
Brilliant blaze
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis and Clark could never have imagined a pit like the one in this photograph. Opened in 1997, it is about twelve miles east of the Missouri River and sixty miles north of Bismarck, North Dakota. In the background is a postglacial tarn called Coal Lake.
Observing Bighorn Sheep
A pictorial essay
by Joseph A. Mussulman
By telling the story of how these photos and videos were created, the behaviors of the bighorn sheep are described.
The Lochsa River
Packer Meadows to Colt Killed Creek
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Snow was falling in the high country above them on the morning of 14 September 1805 when, after striking camp two miles downstream from Packer Meadows, the Corps slogged down the Glade Creek canyon through rain and sleet.
Turtles
Reptiles of the order Testudines
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis reported on 26 May 1805, that on a creek he saw “several softshelled Turtles which were the first that have been seen this season; this I believe proceeded reather from the season than from their nonexistence in the portion of the river from the Mandans hither.” He was probably correct.
Oxbow Bend
Land and water
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On 19 July 1805, Lewis ‘doubled’ around Oxbow Bend, then 30 feet lower and maybe one-fourth as wide as it is today. Behind the river’s curve, an ancient landmark on the Indian Old North Trail, still stands out.
Across the Great Divide
Over Lemhi Pass
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Below the summit of today’s Lemhi Pass, Lewis said that he had reached “the most distant fountain of the waters of the mighty Missouri in surch of which we have spent so many toilsome days and wristless nights.”
Bobcats
Lynx rufus fasciatus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
While constructing Fort Clatsop, Clark recorded two significant transactions: “The Indians left us to day after brackfast, haveing Sold us 2 of the robes of a Small animal for which I intend makeing a Capot.”
Edward S. Curtis
Sepia-toned photogravure
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Edward Sheriff Curtis’s monumental collection of photographs was intended to be the ultimate documentation of the then-apparent end of traditional Indian life-ways. The consummation of thirty years’ work, it was enabled by substantial patronage from the wealthy financier J. P. Morgan.
Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730–1794)
Early American Army trainer
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Until he presented his services to General Washington at Valley Forge, the Continental Army still consisted merely of a number of state-sponsored militias that were entirely independent of one another, each operating according to its own rules and regulations.
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge
Horrid noise
by Joseph A. Mussulman
On the night of 4 November 1805 the expedition camped near a pond now called Post Office Lake. The next morning a weary, groggy Clark complained that he “could not Sleep for the noise” made by the numerous waterfowl.
Passing Hell’s Gate
Up the Blackfoot River
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The continuation of the Northern Nez Perce Trail led from their camp at Travelers’ Rest to the plains near the Great Falls of the Missouri, saving hundreds of miles from the expedition’s 1805 route.
The Vermillion River
The stream near Spirit Mound
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The Corps left the white pirogue at the mouth of this stream and followed it part of the way to the storied Spirit Mound. During the years between the day the Corps passed it and today, its mouth has migrated about 2.5 miles southeast.
Meeting the Salish
Multiple perspectives
by Joseph A. Mussulman
The story of Lewis and Clark meeting the Flathead Salish on 4 September 1805 at Ross Hole is told by one expedition member, four Salish Indians, and one western artist.
Prairie Dogs
Cynomys ludovicianus
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Few of their discoveries seized more interest, even controversy, from the American public. And certainly no others demanded more care than the six live specimens—including one prairie dog—that endured a four-month, 4,000-mile cage-bound odyssey to Washington City.
Major Owen’s Lolos
An early settler's records
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Bitterroot Valley businessman John Owen counted no Lolos among the customers he dealt with at Fort Owen, but he occasionally hired one as a trail-hand.
Louisville
Kentucky recruits
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Clark was waiting with seven more recruits who would become permanent members of the contingent soon to be known as the Corps of Volunteers for North Western Discovery.
Nathaniel Pryor
Sergeant
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Pryor was assigned several special missions from exploring the Sandy River to escorting Mandan Chiefs to Washington City. He would barely survive his adventures on the Yellowstone River.
Fort Peck Dam
Varied landscape
by Joseph A. Mussulman
“The countrey on the North Side of the Missouri is one of the handsomest plains we have yet Seen on the river,” Clark declared. Lewis described the ragged badlands on the south side as “high broken hills….”
A ‘Sinque’ Hole
Below the Smoking Place
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Private Whitehouse reported: “Camped at a Small branch on the mountain near a round deep Sinque hole full of water.”
Naming Places
Lewis and Clark's Montanan names
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis and Clark’s name “Travelers Rest” was too site-specific to simultaneously function equitably with the creek, the peak, the hot springs, the pass, and all the rest. By the time settlers began moving into the region, the old name was basically meaningless.
Rainbow Falls by Air
"Pleasingly beautifull"
by Joseph A. Mussulman
After briefly contemplating the Crooked Falls on 14 June 1805, Lewis followed the sound of “a tremendious roaring” to “one of the most beautifull objects in nature,” a fifty-foot-high cascade “with an edge as regular and as straight as if formed by art.”
Local Recollections
Wheeler's inquiries
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Around 1900, Olin D. Wheeler, initiated an inquiry into the source and meaning of the name Lolo. He secured the aid of Judge Frank Woody of Missoula, who in turn discussed the matter with some other “old-timers.”
Lewis’s Branding Iron
by Joseph A. Mussulman
Lewis may have had this branding iron custom-made before he left the East, perhaps at Harpers Ferry, although there is no mention of it in existing records. Such tools commonly were used for marking wooden packing crates and barrels, and on leather bags, until the early 20th century.
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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