Colter’s Creek

At 3 p.m. on 7 October 1805, the Corps loaded their five new dugout canoes–four large ones plus a small one “to look ahead”–and set out down the Clearwater River toward the Columbia and the Pacific beyond. The rest of the day’s events didn’t bode well for them. To begin with, Clark was feeling poorly, but he was “obliged to attend [to] everything,” getting the damaged canoes put back in the water and loaded. Meanwhile, he discovered that his pipe tomahawk was missing. When they were all ready to proceed on, Tetoharsky and Twisted Hair, the two Nez Perce chiefs who had promised to go along, stood them up. In “the after part of the day” the canoe Clark was in struck a rock and sprung a leak at “a thin place in her Side.” Somehow they managed to continue on for 20 miles through six more rapids.

The next day they navigated through 15 rapids without incident, but the sixteenth was the scene of what Joseph Whitehouse reported as a “Sad axident.” It happened a short distance downriver from the mouth of a stream the captains named for John Colter—now the Potlatch River—near the bridge in the photo above. The canoe that Sergeant Gass was steering “Struck a rock in the middle of the rapid,” Sergeant Ordway explained, “and Swang round and Struck another rock and cracked hir So that it filled with water.” Several nonswimmers clung to the damaged canoe, and “their they Stayed in this doleful Situation” until other men, including two Indians, could get them and the baggage safely to shore. Everything was wet, “perticularly the greater part of our Small Stock of merchindize” for trading, according to Clark. The officers took the precaution of posting sentries to guard the drying items. The Indians, Clark observed, were “enclined to theave,” but he admitted that they “appeared disposed to give us every assistance in their power dureing our distress.”

The expedition passed several camps of Indian fishermen on the Islands and near the rapids that day. “At one of Those Camps,” Clark noted, “we found our two Chiefs who had promised accompany us.” It seems that somehow the two Nez Perce men had either passed up the Americans without noticing them, or had taken a few shortcuts to get ahead. “We took them on board after the Serimony of Smokeing,” wrote Clark.

Upon examining the damaged canoe again on the morning of 9 October 1805 they found that by putting in knees^[1]A “knee” is a piece of wood such as the joining of two tree-branches of a suitable size and angle, flattened on the inner and outer surfaces of the angle, which is nailed or screwed to … Continue reading and nailing strong cleats to her sides “She Could be made fit for Service . . . by the time the goods dried,” so the captains put four men to work on her and sent others out to find enough pine pitch to caulk the seams. It was cloudy all day, which kept the wet articles from drying sufficiently for repacking before dark, so they had to lay over another day.

That night, Clark wrote,

we were informed that our old guide & his Son had left us and had been Seen running up the river Several miles above, we Could not account for the Cause of his leaveing us at this time, without receiving his pay for the Services he had rendered us, or letting us know anything of his intention.^[2]The Lemhi Shoshone guide Toby who accompanied Clark on his reconnaissance of the Salmon River, 20–24 August 1805, “apeared to be a very friendly intelligent old man,” and he was willing … Continue reading     we requested the Chief [presumably one of the two Nez Perce chiefs] to Send a horseman after our old guide to come back and recive his pay &c. which he advised us not to do as his [the Chief’s?] nation would take his [Toby’s] things from him before he passed their camps.

Replay

The Corps of Discovery passed this way again on 5 May 1806, on horseback, and virtually destitute of trade goods. Fortunately, if reluctantly, they became itinerant health-care providers for the Nez Perce. “My friend Capt. C. is their favorite phisician,” wrote Lewis, making do with the few medicaments they still had, diluted with comforting sincerity and a reassuring bedside manner. “In our present situation,” Lewis said, “I think it pardonable to continue this deseption for they will not give us any provision without compensation.”