Frequently Asked Questions
After years of doing Lewis & Clark encampments along the middle Missouri, we hear some questions frequently. Some show insight, some show a thirst for knowledge, others are amusing and some are just plain odd. Below are a few of our favorites.
Q: Is your encampment on the same spot that Lewis & Clark camped on?
A: Probably not. The only way to confirm a location as a Lewis & Clark campsite is to uncover archeological evidence. General areas can be determined through the journals of the Expedition when they specify a landmark that still exists and the position of the camp in relation to it. In the case of our encampment at Fort Atkinson State Historical Site in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, later contemporaries of Clark (Colonel Atkinson in particular) were able to locate the general location of the council but not the camp site itself.
Although the Expedition recorded their location on a regular basis, those coordinates are of little help in pinpointing sites. While latitude is relatively easy to figure, longitude requires complicated mathematical calculations and knowledge of the exact time. Unfortunately, the Expedition allowed their chronometer to stop on at least one occasion, rendering it worthless for more than approximations of their location.
The natural tendency of the Missouri at that time was to change channels frequently, sometimes changing it's course by miles. Constant bank erosion and flooding would also eradicate any archeologically significant clues that might have been left behind.
Q: Wasn't Sacagawea hired to guide the Lewis & Clark Expedition?
A: No. She had been stolen from her people as a child and was, in effect, a slave who ended up in the Mandan Villages as the wife/property of Toussaint Charbonneau. She had spent most of her life away from the land of her birth. When Charbonneau was hired as an interpreter for the Expedition it was decided that she would accompany them. This served two purposes. First, the Native American tribes that were encountered would be less likely to mistake the explorers for a war party if there was a woman traveling with them and second, and even more important, she was a Shoshone and Lewis hoped her presences among them would aid in acquiring the horses from that tribe that the Expedition so desperately needed if they were to have any hope of crossing the Rocky Mountains.
There are no records that she was ever promised or paid wages for her services to the Corps of Discovery. The first time she recognized a familiar landmark was when she saw Beaver Head Rock, well within the Shoshone territory, and inferred that the travelers must be close to the lands of her people.
Q: Why doesn't Discovery Corps have any female reenactors? Shouldn't someone be portraying Sacagawea?
A: There are no women reenactors in Discovery Corps (there are female members) simply because there were no women on the Expedition. The Corps portrays the encampments during the summer of 1804 in the middle Missouri region. They would not meet Sacagawea until they reach the Mandan Villages many miles up river.
Q: You're not really going to eat that?
A: You bet!! Discovery Corps has some of the best cooks that ever sweated over a fire pit and we put them to good use! A lot of people seem to think that food isn't edible unless it comes out of a micro wave or a blister pack. The fact is, we can fix just about anything on an open fire that most people can cook at home in their kitchens, and we do it from scratch. This is one of the few areas in which the Corps departs from historical authenticity.
On the Expedition the men did back breaking work day in and day out in a region where the only food available to a moving party was either killed or obtained from the tribes they encountered. For this reason the hunters among them were highly prized and spent most of their time out ahead of the rest acquiring meat. Due to the exertion, the average intake per man was nine pounds of meat a day. With close to fifty men to feed, that was a lot of hunting!
Most of our reenactors couldn't eat that much boiled or roasted meat on every encampment. Good food is one of the ways we lure our members into wearing wool clothing in the blistering summer heat.
Q: Do you really live in those tents during all the events?
A: Sure, why not? The Expedition members did. In fact, the seven foot wedge tents that they carried were only set up if they were planning to camp for several days at a time, like during a council with the Native American tribes or for a rest and repair stop. Most of the time members slept on the ground in the open. There are references in the journals to them laying down in the pouring rain and falling asleep. Those were some tough individuals!
Q: If you people would get jobs you wouldn't have to live like this!
A: I swear I'm not making this one up! OK, we've only heard this once so technically it shouldn't even be on this list but I always find it amusing.
Q: Where are your boats?
A: It's true, in this stretch of the Missouri the Corps of Discovery traveled in a keelboat and two pirogues, a red one and a white one. Unfortunately the Corps already hauls an amazing amount of gear to encampments. The logistics (not to mention the insurance) involved in constructing and moving full sized boats like the ones used by Lewis & Clark are mind boggling. Boats lay a bit beyond the scope of our program. It is possible to see reconstructions of those crafts at Lewis & Clark State Park in Onawa, Iowa, U.S.A. A link to the web site of the keelboat maker in included in our Info page.
Q: Is that real fire?
A: I'll probably never understand this question as long as I live but we get it all the time. You'll be busy cooking lunch over the fire pit, smoke and steam rolling away on the breeze, and some one will ask if it's a real fire? Well...yes!