October 30, 1833
The baggage was put in order early and distributed over the boat. Mr. Hamilton had breakfast prepared earlier. It turned out that two of my people did not have [long] guns—Bourgua and Hugron. The latter had a pistol. We took leave of Fort Union and its inhabitants at eleven o’clock in beautiful, fine weather and navigated down the river. About noon a light breeze arose. After a quarter of an hour, we lost sight of the fort. Here the river made its first turn. Forest alternated with low willow thickets on the riverbanks.
At twelve thirty the mouth of the Yellowstone River was to the right. On the right, a hill chain, in front of which lay the lake already mentioned. The river made a large turn. The area here [was] rather flat except for the hill chain on the left bank leading down from Fort Union. In front of that bank, Fort William was being erected. The forests had lost all their leaves—only the buffalo berry bushes (Elaeagnus argentea) still had some wilted, whitish leaves. The river was very low here and full of sandbars. We only had one narrow channel on the left bank. Soon we put in at the landing-place of Fort William on a steep bank about ten feet high. We debarked and went across to where the willow thicket had been cut down [to] about 60 paces wide. From there, a broad view had been cleared toward the fort, 300 paces distant. The walk through the prairie was pleasant [in such] nice weather.
Mr. Campbell most cordially received us and gave us letters for his clerk with the Hidatsas (Gros Ventres), Mr. Dougherty (brother of the Indian agent). We received a small box of cigars [and] a prairie fox as presents; [the fox was] caught today in a steel beaver trap. Mr. Campbell accompanied us back to the riverbank. At one thirty we continued the trip. It was afternoon, and our people had nothing to eat except old, awful, pork bacon fat. We ate ham (they had let us have it as a favor from the meager supply at Fort Union) [and] with it coffee, sugar, and a few biscuits. We looked cravingly at a gaggle of wild geese on the riverbank. The rifles were loaded and put in order.
At the next turn of the river, we reached the hill chain [on] the right, which jutted out steeply [and had] the appearance of cut-off heads; two horizontal stripes of layered coal were beginning, still narrow. We saw three hunters from Fort William sitting on the riverbank. Opposite and to the left on the headland there was sand with wood [jetsam] deposited there by the river.
On the walls of the ravines on the right bank there was Juniperus prostrata growing, now in its dark, reddish brown winter color. Lewis and Clark mention this plant in several places. In this area both riverbanks are covered with forest or willow and cottonwood thickets. Wild geese (Anser canadensis) appeared frequently; a covey of prairie hens (Tetrao phasianellus) landed on the left bank but could not quite tolerate us. I shot and missed. The riverbanks were now completely covered with forest; in many places [there were] lively young willow thickets colored reddish brown or yellowish red. After an hour we lay to on a headland on the right and cooked. As we landed, a large wolf appeared in the willows and a magpie (Corvus pica amer.) fled from our vicinity. [There] were Parus atricapillus in the willows.
We noticed prairie hens in the sand. [They] like to come onto the sandbars in the river; [we] saw a flock of them and [also] a large wolf. A herd of seven chevreuils [deer] (Cervus virginianus) came to the water to drink, [as did] two kinds of mice, whose cute little tracks were always visible in fours on the packed sand. Our people cooked their salt pork as well as some coffee. Dreidoppel did not feel well.
All three of us had slight headaches, without doubt from the poor, fatty food, the old salt pork, of which we had gotten only very little this morning. At Fort Union today they gave us very weak chocolate boiled with milk instead of coffee. For lunch we ate some cold ham. Fort Union actually suffered from a great lack of meat at the time. The dried bison meat had run out, [and] they were eating salt pork.
At the next bend of the river, we saw large clouds of smoke rise on the heights in several places, some [caused] by the hunters and lumberjacks from Fort William. We sailed close to the left bank; it was 15 feet high and, at the edge of the water, completely covered with salt (see Lewis and Clark). At dusk we were again near the bluffs and continued sailing for another two hours until eight o’clock, when the night forced us to put in. Morrin wanted to wait for the moon [before proceeding], and [we] therefore lay to on the right riverbank, where the [crew] lit a fire. We stayed the whole night [anyway], even though the moon shone magnificently. The night was excellent; there was strong hoarfrost, and [it] froze a little toward morning. Nobody stood watch. To the right we saw fire on the prairie across the river.