The Journals of Lewis and Clark: Dates October 5, 1804 - October 10, 1804
The following excerpts are taken from entries of the Journals of Lewis and Clark. Dates: October 5, 1804 - October 10, 1804

October 5, 1804
Friday, October 5. The weather was very cold: yesterday evening and this morning there was a white frost. We sailed along the highlands on the north side, passing a small creek on the south, between three and four miles. At seven o'clock we heard some yells and saw three Indians of the Teton band, who asked us to come on shore and begged for some tobacco, to all which we gave the same answer as hitherto. At eight miles we reached a small creek on the north. At fourteen we passed an island on the south, covered with wild rye, and at the head a large creek comes in from the south, which we named Whitebrant creek, from seeing several white brants among flocks of dark-colored ones. At the distance of twenty miles we came to on a sandbar towards the north side of the river, with a willow island opposite; the hills or bluffs come to the banks of the river on both sides, but are not so high as they are below: the river itself however continues of the same width, and the sandbars are quite as numerous. The soil of the banks is dark colored, and many of the bluffs have the appearance of being on fire. Our game this day was a deer, a prairie wolf, and some goats out of a flock that was swimming across the river.

October 6, 1804
Saturday, October 6. The morning was still cold, the wind being from the north. At eight miles we came to a willow island on the north, opposite a point of timber, where there are many large stones near the middle of the river, which seem to have been washed from the hills and high plains on both sides, or driven from a distance down the stream. At twelve miles we halted for dinner at a village which we suppose to have belonged to the Ricaras; it is situated in a low plain on the river, and consists of about eighty lodges, of an octagon form, neatly covered with earth, placed as close to each other as possible, and picketed round. The skin canoes, mats, buckets, and articles of furniture found in the lodges, induce us to suppose that it had been left in the spring. We found three different sorts of squashes growing in the village; we also killed an elk near it, and saw two wolves. On leaving the village the river became shallow, and after searching a long time for the main channel, which was concealed among sandbars, we at last dragged the boat over one of them rather than go back three miles for the deepest channel. At fourteen and a half miles we stopped for the night on a sandbar, opposite a creek on the north, called Otter creek, twenty-two yards in width, and containing more water than is common for creeks of that size. The sides of the river during the day are variegated with high bluffs and low timbered grounds on the banks: the river is very much obstructed by sandbars. We saw geese, swan, brants and ducks of different kinds on the sandbars, and on shore numbers of the prairie hen; the magpie too is very common, but the gulls and plover, which we saw in such numbers below, are now quite rare.

October 7, 1804
Sunday, October 7. There was frost again last evening, and this morning was cloudy and attended with rain. At two miles we came to the mouth of a river; called by the Ricaras, Sawawkawna, or Pork river; the party who examined it for about three miles up, say that its current is gentle, and that it does not seem to throw out much sand. Its sources are in the first range of the Black mountains, and though it has now only water of twenty yards width, yet when full it occupies ninety. Just below the mouth is another village or wintering camp of the Ricaras, composed of about sixty lodges, built in the same form as those passed yesterday, with willow and straw mats, baskets and buffalo-skin canoes remaining entire in the camp. We proceeded under a gentle breeze from the southwest: at ten o'clock we saw two Indians on the north side, who told us they were a part of the lodge of Tartongawaka, or buffalo Medicine, the Teton chief whom we had seen on the twenty-fifth, that they were on the way to the Ricaras, and begged us for something [100]to eat, which we of course gave them. At seven and a half miles is a willow island on the north, and another on the same side five miles beyond it, in the middle of the river between highlands on both sides. At eighteen and a half miles is an island called Grouse island, on which are the walls of an old village; the island has no timber, but is covered with grass and wild rye, and owes its name to the number of grouse that frequent it. We then went on till our journey for the day was twenty-two miles: the country presented the same appearance as usual. In the low timbered ground near the mouth of the Sawawkawna, we saw the tracks of large white bear, and on Grouse island killed a female blaireau, and a deer of the black-tailed species, the largest we have ever seen.