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Journals of Lewis and Clark: Dates November 1804 - Part One

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The Journals of Lewis and Clark: Dates November 1, 1804 - November 7, 1804
The following excerpts are taken from entries of the Journals of Lewis and Clark. Dates: November 1, 1804 - November 7, 1804

November 1, 1804
Thursday, November 1st. Mr. M‘Cracken, the trader whom we found here, set out to-day on his return to the British fort and factory on the Assiniboine river, about one hundred and fifty miles from this place. He took a letter from Captain Lewis to the northwest company, inclosing a copy of the passport granted by the British minister in the United States. At ten o'clock the chiefs of the lower village arrived; they requested that we would call at their village for some corn, that they were willing to make peace with the Ricaras, that they had never provoked the war between them, but as the Ricaras had killed some of their chiefs, they had retaliated on them; that they had killed them like birds, till they were tired of killing them, so that they would send a chief and some warriors to smoke with them. In the evening we dropped down to the lower village where Captain Lewis went on shore, and captain Clarke proceeded to a point of wood on the north side.

November 2, 1804
Friday, November 2. He therefore went up to the village where eleven bushels of corn were presented to him. In the meantime Captain Clarke went down with the boats three miles, and having found a good position where there was plenty of timber, encamped and began to fell trees to build our huts. Our Ricara chief set out with one Mandan chief and several Minnetaree and Mandan warriors; the wind was from the southeast, and the weather being fine a crowd of Indians came down to visit us.

November 3, 1804
Saturday 3. We now began the building of our cabins, and the Frenchmen who are to return to St. Louis are building a pirogue for the purpose. We sent six men in a pirogue to hunt down the river. We were also fortunate enough to engage in our service a Canadian Frenchmen, who had been with the Chayenne Indians on the Black mountains, and last summer descended thence by the Little Missouri. Mr. Jessaume our interpreter also came down with his squaw and children to live at our camp. In the evening we received a visit from Kagohami or Little Raven, whose wife accompanied him, bringing about sixty weight of dried meat, a robe and a pot of meal. We gave him in return a piece of tobacco, to his wife an axe and a few small articles, and both of them spent the night at our camp. Two beavers were caught in traps this morning.

November 4, 1804
Sunday 4. We continued our labors: the timber which we employ is large and heavy, and chiefly consists of cottonwood and elm with some ash of an inferior size. Great numbers of the Indians pass our camp on their hunting excursions: the day was clear and pleasant, but last night was very cold and there was a white frost.

November 5, 1804
Monday 5. The Indians are all out on their hunting parties: a camp of Mandans caught within two days one hundred goats a short distance below us: their mode of hunting them is to form a large strong pen or fold, from which a fence made of bushes gradually widens on each side: the animals are surrounded by the hunters and gently driven towards this pen, in which they imperceptibly find themselves inclosed and are then at the mercy of the hunters. The weather is cloudy and the wind moderate from the northwest. Late at night we were awaked by the sergeant on guard to see the beautiful phenomenon called the northern light: along the northern sky was a large space occupied by a light of a pale but brilliant white color: which rising from the horizon extended itself to nearly twenty degrees above it. After glittering for some time its colors would be overcast, and almost obscured, but again it would burst out with renewed beauty; the uniform color was pale light, but its shapes were various and fantastic: at times the sky was lined with light colored streaks rising perpendicularly from the horizon, and gradually expanding into a body of light in which we could trace the floating columns sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating and shaping into infinite forms, the space in which they moved. It all faded away before the morning.

November 6, 1804
Tuesday 6. At daylight,the clouds to the north were darkening and the wind rose high from the northwest at eight o'clock, and continued cold during the day. Mr. Gravelines and four others who came with us returned to the Ricaras in a small pirogue, we gave him directions to accompany some of the Ricara chiefs to the seat of government in the spring.

November 7, 1804
Wednesday 7. The day was temperate but cloudy and foggy, and we were enabled to go on with our work with much expedition.

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