for National Geographic News
This article is seventh in a series. The author is following the trail of the Lewis and Clark expedition across the North American West. Along the way, he's reporting on 200th-anniversary events at pivotal locations, and on what happened all those years ago.
The protest by a group of Lakota tribespeople against the reenactment of the Lewis and Clark journey in late September, reported in the previous episode of this series of reports, "has changed the spirit of the voyage," says Scott Mandrell, who portrays Meriwether Lewis. "We did not expect to be treated in the fashion that we were," reenactor Norman Bowers told an ABC News reporter.
They had gotten along well with Native Americans lower down the Missouri. Now? It was anyone's guess what would happen farther upriver.
So far, however, nothing has happened. The reenactors will be going into their winter camp above Bismarck, North Dakota, on November 4, and they have enjoyed a quiet trip over the last month.
The population thins out dramatically in northern South Dakota. Communities on the river are few and far between. The landscape is empty of trees. It is bleak, lonely, and wild. They have seen bison, prairie dogs, deer, antelope, hawks, pheasants, owls, prairie chickens, and wild horses.
A South Dakota National Guard unit portaged them around Oahe Dam, the last dam on the upper Missouri. They also crossed the Oahe Reservoir, which has drowned most of the Lewis and Clark campsites on this part of the river. At several points they found themselves moving just above the tops of drowned trees.
On the second of October the temperature dropped to 23 degrees Fahrenheit (-5 degrees Celsius). Ice formed on the keelboat's deck. The cold and the winds out of Canada and the work of moving boats upriver have kept them busy. They no longer pay much attention to the Lewis and Clark journals. "Our own issues preclude the academic attention to them we once had," Mandrell says. This is becoming less a reenactment of an adventure, in other words, than an adventure in its own right.
Changed Spirit
The encounter with the Teton Sioux changed the spirit of Lewis and Clark's voyage, too. They were on high alert after that. They saw Sioux hunters on the banks of the Missouri nearly every day after they left the Sioux encampment. The hunters were always trying to get them to stop. Lewis and Clark always refused. One brave shot a musket ball across their bow, skipping it over the water. They ignored him.
Their weather, of course, was also turning cold. Progress was slow. The river often took on the typical braided character of High Plains rivers, which are broad, shallow, and divide into many channels. Sometimes the expedition had to reverse course and retreat downriver a few miles to find a channel deep enough to handle the keelboat.
On October 7 Clark saw the first tracks of the "white bear," the grizzly, so called because of the silver hairs that form the outer coat of mature males. On October 20 Pierre Cruzatte shot one and wounded it, then ran for his life when the bear turned on him. He left his rifle and tomahawk behind in his haste.
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