We had breakfast after the baggage had been brought aboard the keelboat Flora early in the morning and took leave of the residents of Fort Union. At seven o’clock the men started pulling the rope, and we moved away along the right bank. The morning was pleasant; the slightly overcast sky cleared up. The keelboat Flora is 10 [——] paces long, 8 paces wide; the length of our small covered cabin, 10 paces; width, 5 [paces]. A small window with a shutter in back; on each side, an entrance, which also provides light. Besides Mr. Mitchell and the three of us, the crew consists of Mr. Culbertson (clerk), as well as a half-breed hunter (Deschamps), and his brother and forty-three men, sixteen to eighteen of whom pull the boat [at any one time] with a towline (cordelle) for two hours; meanwhile, the others rest and then relieve the first group. The boat is heavily laden; it contains all the goods that are intended for Fort Piegan for trade with the Indians, food for a long journey, all our men’s guns, and the like. A few cannon shots were fired on both sides as a farewell; the flag was hoisted at the fort.

At first we had willow thickets and forest on both banks. Behind them on the left bank, whitish hills with flat tops rose in a long chain. On the right bank a multitude of roses bloomed in the forest and provided an attractive view. This is still the same forest in which the Assiniboines’ remains rest on trees. Farther on, our boat haulers walked up to their waists in young willow growth. Because of the calm, oppressively warm weather, several of them lay down at the river to drink, and they were not concerned about the mud or white sand in which their bodies were impressed. Behind Above the forest on the left bank, bluffs rise that are 20 feet high and are of an unsightly gray-brown clay; a narrow prairie, completely covered whitish with Artemisia, extends to these barren hills. Here we lose sight of the region around Fort Union, [as] the river turns to the north [——] and somewhat eastward. The rope, on which at first twenty-six men pulled today, was caught on a tree in the water. A man waded over there, climbed up, and chopped off a branch [to free it]. Forest on both banks.

We halt for a while, load some short pieces of wood, and cook on an iron cookstove on deck. To the right, prairie, as the forest comes to an end, with grass, Artemisia, an abundance of blooming roses, Xanthium strumarium, and other plants. Here we put in at the steep bank. Messrs. McKenzie, Mitchell, and the interpreters Halcrow and Roxel arrive on horseback to take leave of us. They stayed for half an hour and rode away [just] as we reached the high, whitish, bare clay hills which the prairie joins. As they rode off, a cannon was fired (we had two cannon on board).

We rowed across the river, [where] Mr. Bodmer, Dreidoppel, and I, with three other hunters, went ashore. We wanted to try to shoot game, because we had no provisions on board other [than] salt pork and biscuit. We roamed through an old forest of elm, ash, cottonwood, and negundo with dense underbrush of countless roses. There were especially many blackbirds. Beyond the forest we crossed the prairie. On the edge of [this] there were thickets in which we hoped to find game. There was very tall grass, burrs like Xanthium strumarium in large quantities, and all kinds of interesting plants. The ground between the grass [plants] was mostly whitish, completely dry, hardened clay. We did not see any game; we were still too close to the area around the fort. But I found ten to twelve animal lairs and several remnants of skeletons. The call of the lovely Icteria viridis was heard in the dense thickets of the trees and bushes just mentioned, especially the roses. The prairie again joined high, steep, whitish gray bluffs of hardened clay. We stopped to wait for the boat.

We climbed the elevation and found many interesting plants there: mostly short, dry plants and very few grasses, which grow scattered in tufts on the hardened clay. Above the hill soared a pair of Falco sparverius; I shot one. From here the view was remarkable and beautiful. We [could see] the wide bends the river made, the green lowlands with forest and willow thickets, the prairies lying here and there behind them, and the high, strange chains of clay hills, whitish gray with a few darker transverse layers and regular perpendicular furrows or clefts.

Finally the boat appeared; the men often had waded through water and soft ground and afterward got rid of their trousers. We had not been on the boat very long when we scraped against fallen tree trunks, which crushed one of the doors of our cabin. About one o’clock, Mr. Mitchell and Bodmer went out hunting again; they did not shoot anything, however, and soon returned. At noon today the sky was overcast, but it was no longer so warm.

We now went over to the other bank. The men were taken in, both large oars were placed into their iron bolts, and three to five men pushed them back and forth by going forward and backward on the deck. On land we found piles of driftwood. A tree swept the deck clear because the workingmen did not hear the warning. The stays on the mast were torn loose, and I received a blow that struck me almost too ungently! The crew waded through the water and deep mud to land, but then we had a nice, level prairie, [and] we advanced swiftly. In the boat it often grew dark, so close did we get beneath the high bank. Later we had forest on the bank, where the men with the cordelle struggled forward only with difficulty. In this forest grew beautiful plants, including a rose with white blossoms, probably a variety of the common one, since the buds and individual flowers had a somewhat pale red color. The red willow and buffalo berry very common. We heard our hunters shooting on the other side. We ate lunch after four o’clock: salt pork, pemmican, hard zwieback, and coffee.

Evening, beautiful but a little cool; forest on both sides of the river. Before and behind us, the tall, strangely bare clay hills, the rear ones beautifully illuminated by the evening sun. We saw several beaver paths. The river seemed to be rising, for it was carrying timber and all kinds of objects downstream. Somewhat before sunset our hunters appeared on the opposite bank, and they seemed to be carrying venison. They were fetched, and they brought aboard a two-year-old black-tailed buck. In the evening, powder and bullets were distributed among the crew, and they were divided into watches. Two men always had to stand guard for two hours, with three watch periods throughout the night. The men tossed out a large number of fishing lines. The evening was very cool. Mr. Bodmer had gone out, [and] 1 mile ahead of us along the river, he had found the quite fresh, still almost steaming droppings of bison. Mr. Mitchell had the crew notified that whoever fired a shot after the evening halt would be fined five dollars. If an Indian war party were in the vicinity, any shot would immediately attract them.

Our men are all Canadian French; their names are as follows:

1. Pierre Beauchamp
2. David Beauchamp
3. Gabriel Benoit
4. Jos. Urban Bolduc
5. Aug. Bourbonnet
6. Pierre Carpentier
7. Pierre Croteau
8. Bapt. Desjardins
9. Ant. Dauphin
10. Louis Desnoyers
11. Cyprien Desnoyers
12. Jos. Derois
13. Julien Duchouquette
13. Louis D’apron
14. Guill. D’apron
15. D. Garnier
16. Ant. Guion
17. A. Hamelle
18. B. Jaqueman
19. L. Lacomte
20. Carifelle
21. L. Laramie
22. Jean Latresse
23. Leandre Marechal
24. Julien Marechal
25. Fr. Maxant (steward)

26. Henry Morrin (helmsman)
27. Larcute Martin
28. Louis Vincenneau
29. Louis Laderoute
30. Louis Palmier
31. Jos. Papin (good hunter)
32. [——] Shoutts
33. Wm. Smith
34. M. Suprennant
35. L. Saucier (carpenter)
36. Alex. Thiebault
37. Fr. Souchette
38. Jos. Souchette
39. Pascal Forique
40. Louis Forique
42. Charles Trudelle
43. Joseph Potocrin (cook)

Mr. Mitchell
Mr. Culbertson
Deschamps (half-Indian, hunter)
Deschamps (half-Indian)
Mr. Mitchell’s wife (Indian)
A Blackfoot squaw

In addition, we three Germans were on board, fifty-two persons in all.