Part VI · Fort Clatsop
Chapter 22
Fort Clatsop
Fort Clatsop, near present-day Astoria, Oregon
Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805–06 at Fort Clatsop, a small log fort they built near present-day Astoria, Oregon, and named after their neighbours, the Clatsop people. It rained on all but twelve days of the winter, and they left for home on 23 March 1806.
December 1805
In a thick forest of spruce and fir, on a rise above a small river a few miles from the ocean, the men start building. Fort Clatsop is small, about fifty feet on each side: two rows of log huts facing each other across a narrow yard, with a stockade of logs joining them and a gate at each end. On 24 December everyone moves in.
The captains name it after their neighbours. The Clatsop people live in big houses of cedar planks nearby. Their leader, Coboway, visits often, bringing roots, berries and fish to trade.
And it rains. It rains almost every day, for weeks at a time. The men’s leather clothes rot and fall apart. The huts are smoky and full of fleas. Food spoils. Many of the men are sick with colds, fevers and sore joints. It will rain on all but twelve days before they leave.
Christmas 1805
On Christmas morning the men wake the captains with a volley of gunfire and a song. They exchange presents. Clark writes down his: from Lewis, a shirt, drawers and socks; “a pr. Mockersons of Whitehouse a small Indian basket of Gutherich, two dozen white weazils tails of the Indian woman.” Sacagawea’s gift of white weasel tails is a precious thing; they are used to decorate the finest clothes.
Christmas dinner is less cheerful. Clark writes that the elk is so spoiled “that we eate it thro’ mear necessity, Some spoiled pounded fish and a fiew roots.” The captains divide their last tobacco among the men who smoke, and give handkerchiefs to those who don’t.
New Year’s Day 1806
On New Year’s morning Lewis is woken early by “the discharge of a volley of small arms,” fired by the men in front of the captains’ hut “to usher in the new year.” Dinner is boiled elk and wapato roots, with water to drink. The real feast, Lewis writes, is in their imaginations: “the anticipation of the 1st day of January 1807, when in the bosom of our friends we hope to participate in the mirth and hilarity of the day.”
The same day the captains write out the rules of the fort. A sentry stands guard day and night. The men are ordered to treat their neighbours “in a friendly manner.” At sunset a sergeant, with Charbonneau and two guards, sees every visitor out of the fort, and the main gate is locked until sunrise.
January 1806
They need salt, to make the meat last and taste of something. So the captains send a few men fifteen miles south along the coast to a beach where they build a stone oven and boil seawater in five big kettles, all day and all night.
On 5 January two of them come back to the fort with news. Lewis writes that “they commenced the making of salt and found that they could obtain from 3 quarts to a gallon a day,” and that the sample they bring back is “excellent, fine, strong.” The salt-makers will keep at it for weeks.