Bald Eagle. Photo by Dan Earnhardt. Courtesy of the National Parks Service. www.nps.gov
The Assiniboine and the Gros Ventre
with Arlie Neskahi
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From the journal of William Clark::
Meriwether Lewis, April 25 th. The whole face of the country was covered with herds of buffalo, elk, and antelopes. They are so gentle that we pass near them while feeding, without appearing to excite any alarm among them. They frequently approach us more nearly to discover what we are.
Neskahi:
Welcome to Wisdom of the Elders. I’m Arlie Neskahi. On April 14th, 1805, the expedition passed a small creek. The creek already had a name, but Lewis and Clark gave it a new one. They named it after their interpreter, Touissaint Charbonneau, the French adventurer who had previously camped there. Lewis believed it to be the farthest any white man had ventured up the Missouri. Perhaps this was a momentous occasion for the explorers, but in the vast Northern Plains, crossed for thousands of years by the original tribes, the achievement loses some of its significance. Read more »
