Ep. 346: Sex and Suicide on the Lewis and Clark Expedition

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Brad Tennant is here history professor at Presentation College in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and is described as a Lewis and Clark NERD. Do you prefer expert? I prefer expert? Yeah? What did you did you? Uh? Did you? Are you formally educated in Lewis and Clark. Um. It's just been something that I've grown up with. I grew up about fifteen miles from Missouri River, so very historic area, and Lewis and Clark was always part of the history of the area

and also state history. And then as I went into teaching, it was an area that I talked quite a bit about. Did you study up on it in school? Like, did you pursue it for any of your degrees? Not so much in school, But it's when I started teaching that I really started delving into a lot more in detail. Uh, Spencer, you found him right, Yes, he came on a YouTube show that we made um looking at Lewis and Clark

catching catfish. And I consider having Brad on this podcast is like one of my greatest career achievements so far. Because you don't think Lewis and Clark are all that cool, No, I don't. I think it's a big government. That's why I like. That's why I like free Trappers. Man was so, what what is it you don't love about Lewis and Clark's big government? Like, now a couple of dudes wander

around out there trapping beavers is cool. You already messed it up, Steve, when you say big government, you have to follow it up with I'm not gonna say anything. Just do the research, Okay, exactly. Uh, that's a good point. No, I'm mostly joking. But it's like it's just two or it was. I thought it was too organized. Yeah, but with a lot of people too organized. I like the stories about just a couple of dudes, like, for instance, I don't know if you're familiar with the fellow named

John Coulter Brad, I am uh um. Now his first trip out with Louis Clark whatever, but before he gets back, he joins up with some trappers and turns around and goes back. That's interesting. But I got a question for you. Weren't some of those mountain men involved in some very very like organized, heavily manned expeditions too. Well, that's why Yanni will now educate you on what a free trapper is. Oh,

I will. Well, because you know that guy that you used to tell you I saw I like to walk around, yeah, saying that we're all free trappers. We do whatever we want to do. But I don't know if I know the definition you had company. In the Mountain Man area, you had company trappers or brigade trappers, and you had free trappers. And a lot of those famous dudes were both both but linked up with usually started as a company trapper and he became a free trapper, or he

could be just a free trapper. And uh, you know, so when you say, like, if if you're going out fishing, you know, and your spouse is like, you're what, you'd be like, I'm free trapper, bro walk out. I'll keep that next time I go fishing. Now, Brad, we got some other stuff to cover before we get to Louis and Clark, like introduced we gotta introduce Tommy, sure, but to titilate Steve for now, what would be like your elevator pitch on why Lewis and Clark are so damn

cool now that I dogged on him so much? Well, I think it's a part of the story that still residents today that you know, here we are coming up on Twitter in twenty years and we're still talking about Lewis and Clark on a podcast. I think that tells you a lot. Uh, that's something that has grown because it used to be that you talked about Lewis and Clark expedition, leaving the St. Louis area in May of eighteen o four and coming back in September eighteen o six.

Now they've extended the Lewis and Clark Trail all the way back to the east, so it covers a lot more states. Uh goes back to the Ohio Falls when Lewis and Clark first actually joined together as part of this expedition. After all the planning. Uh, there's there's just I always say it's it's a lot of stories. That's not really just one big story. It's a lot of stories, involves a lot of different people, a lot of different places, a lot of different events. Perfect, And we're gonna cover

Um in particular. We're gonna I want to talk about the mystery of Um Lewis's death. Yes can I can? I So before we get into storey, I just want to ask you this. Then we're gonna move on to smart stuff for a minute. Are you, uhum and on his death without telling any of the circumstances. Are you leaning suicide? Are you lean in murder? I leaned suicide, Okay, And I'm sure there will be a lot of things that will be discussed today. A lot of things that

I'll say that are very controversial. I always tell people that when you go to a Lewis and Clark conference, the nice thing is that everybody's an expert on Lewis and Clark. The bad thing is that everybody's an expert on Lewis and Clark and they never agree. That's what I say. That's one of the things I say about Montana is you have an entire state where everyone's a grizzly expert. Uh. Next to you, Brad is Tommy Edson, who's here for no purpose right now, Nonever. Tommy, tell

me what you do for a living. I moved cardboard boxes, work in a big industrial food where Tommy get closer that Mike as though laughing in ice cream cone. I work in a big industrial food grocery warehouse. And on lunch break, what do you do once a week? Well you originally it started on lunch break, but yeah, I played We played Mediator trivia and and Tommy, Me and Tommy, your old fishing buddies from from the Pacific Northwest. Tommy's an excellent fisherman. I've said this in the past. I'm

gonna just to help tea up Tommy's presence here. I've pointed out multiple times that everywhere you go in this country, everywhere you go, you will find a person who can't who's frustrated because they can't get to it all. There's too much to do outdoorsman, there's too much to do. You can't do it all, can't scratch the surface. And then next door to him is the guy who everything's ruined, the blank are gone, fishing games screwed it up, the

wolves got them all, whatever. Tommy's the one that can't scratch the surface. No, too much to do. Yeah, and this time of year especially, it's like I'm frozen within decision. I'll get up in the morning planning to go do one thing, man, and I'll be thinking about doing something else the whole way there, you know, because there's just so much to do. And Tommy's always sending me his scores from me either tribute. He's here because we're gonna play triving a little bit, and like last week he

beat me, but Yanni beat him. You know, I had seven correct last week. Yeah, Steve's over here spreading all sorts of misinformation that I'd whipped you all every week. That's not true record straight, but he's been posting some strong scores, strong scores, so we had to have him out just to play in person twice now strangers, well, I have walked up to me. It used to be just hey, y'alls, you're honest. Yeah, yeah, I love the

saying great. Now that's changed to hey, you're honest. Yeah. Man, yesterday I would have beat you, like really, Okay, that's what the world is these days. Tommy educated me on how to catch surf perch love fishing surf perch man. Yeah, talking to speaking about Lewis and Clark, even though where the trail ends in seaside Oregon, isn't that correct? Yeah, fish surf perch man, a pistol shop from that from that monument. There you go. That's why he is here.

See there, Broti's here. And that's like a segue. I was just gonna say, I tied that all in for you. Filled the engineer. Phil looking tight on the haircut, buddy, thanks man, that's great callan same haircut is normal, it's still growing. Spencer, he's he's already perched up for his trivia show later on, but he's here because he found our guest and lobby Bradley. He lobbied heavily on your behalf for years, even before we found the official Lewis

and Clark historian. I just wanted a Lewis and Clark historian. Now you're the one, and he's like, now I found him, and I think we were talking about sex on the Lewis and Clark trail. Okay uh. And then of course your honest is here a couple of things Dustin recap. We had Dustin Huff on who just killed the biggest typical not just recently killed the biggest typical white tail

ever killed in America. Um, and he was being pretty fast and loose with like landowner names and locations, and we teased them about this, and then he thought better of it, and so we ended up bleeping out the landowner names and locations. Then Dustin huff goes home and posts a screenshot of on X showing exactly where he killed. So it's out. It was an Instagram story. It was available for twenty four hours, so you gotta do some sleuth.

And I have a screenshot of it where it's like, here it is, here's the spot, Here's where the tree stand was so he God bless him. I think what Doug during said got into his head dogs, like you know what that buck's gone? Was it ever really a secret though? Any? I mean, come on, probably not. I

don't know the buck's gone. Spencer already angled for permission at the guy's sending letters as that trampoline constead Damn called yet man, I was just texting about something different about my summer breaks, like kids taking care of his real intense right now because the summer was staring at my buddy's backyard in Missoula the other day, and big old trampoline out there, every little kid's dream. It's just like covering three inches of old fall foliage. So lets

you know how long it's been sitting there unused. Okay, I can tell you something. Um, I didn't want trampoline, not for the normal reasons. I think people don't want them because their kids are gonna break their arms on them. Yeah. I actually wanted one without the net. Yeah it's hard to find, but I have, but my wife's like it has to have the net. The only reason I didn't want it is because I feel like my kids can have a hard time mowing underneath it, and it's gonna

obstruct my archery lane. And the whole point of having a trampoline is so you can like jump off of stuff onto the trampoline or jump off the trampoline onto stuff, and you can't do that with the net. So but I'm telling you this, listeners are probably confused. Steve is getting a trampoline for his kids. That's that's what we're talking about. But here's the thing. I guarantee, because there's trampolines and two directions, two different neighbors have them. Our

kids live on those trampolines. This trampoline will get heavy use. Yeah, our neighbors got one, which is the perfect place for it, and then our kids can use it and I don't have to have one in my yard. I was like, point out, though, my wife always thinks that what I take the kids to do, she thinks that stuffs dangerous. Okay, Now, every emergency room visit I've gone on, she got him a swing set, is like two days later, broken arm

down the emergency room. Uh, scooters, stitches, legos, stitches every explaining that one the couch, I don't know he fell. He had a lego on a chair and tripped the landing on the gouge a hole in his head. Cal looked at the picture of his head, which had a square hole in it. Cols like, looks like if you pull Lego out of there. And that's before I knew that it was a lego. We're in Mexico. But uh yeah, man,

nothing I do ever get them in trouble. Everything like they get injured by I guarantee they'll get injured on the trampoline. It's one child out of three though, is particularly prone to all that. I think everything you mentioned. Jimmy broke his arm on his Matthew gets cuts his head open all the time. He's had three rounds of

stitches in his head. Speaking of stitches in the head, four hundred stitches that that little girl got in her head and body after she got attacked by that mountain lion at Washington and the crazy Washington didn't have a lion fatality for ninety eight years and then had their first fatality. Now, that little girl got scratched so, m yeah, I'd call that getting scratched up, maybe a little bit

more than scratched up. But what was cool? The reason I'm bringing this up is that Bart George, our buddy. It's doing the research on the mountain lions over there in Washington. He invited the nine year old girl that got attacked by the line out on a uh cat part of the study where they captured the lion and then tranquilize it and then take off the collar. The cat was done with. It's part of the study. And she agreed and she went along. There's a picture of

her and she gotta kick it. She gotta what kick it? Kick the cat? Well, it was no, she looked like she was just just happy to be there. But pretty impressive. That's that had to have been like somewhat therapeutic exactly work through the trauma. Yeah, you hope. It was interesting. As I was telling my daughter was about the same age about that, and she's like, wow, that's like a lot. That's pretty crazio felt a little girl. I don't know if I could do that after being attacked by that

same animal. The pictures that went along with that article when it first came out, when that whole thing broke, man, they were hard to look at. Yeah, did they catch that line and kill it? They got They got it on site right then before DFW even showed up her family. I think just some people that were there. It was Yeah, it was at a I believe Russian Bible camp. And Is my buddy that was one of the first guys on scene there said He's like, it was the most

well armed Bible camp I've ever been to. And uh yeah that cat Uh he went to the wrong camp. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Um, this kind of interesting. So we've covered on the show a fair bit like like both sides of picking up arrowheads, Indian arrowheads. Man Felt can make a health segue out of this into into Lewis and Clark. Oh that's up next to you, keep that mine, Johnny. This story has

many layers. The Missouri guy. So we've covered the impulse, which is I'm no stranger too, is it You're out winding around there's an arrowhead sitting there and you're like, yeah, you're not like anything. Put in your pocket, bring it home, put it on a shelf, then it winds up in

whatever box. Um. We've talked about why that. We've acknowledged the enormous sort of like psychological I don't know, gravity right, the pullsy net direction, and then we talked about the reasons one might not do that, and this fellow named Johnny Lee Brown of Clinton, Missouri just got a little carried away with his arrowhead hunting and is in big trouble. So they were going into prehistoric, prehistoric Native American archaeological sites.

I think these are all from the Archaic period, so three thousand and five thousand year old sites using shovel rakes other tools, digging up artifacts. The name of the site is fantastic as well. Hit us with that, the tight Wad site. But it's not because of the site itself. It's because of the name of the town, which is also tight Wad, Missouri. Right. I don't know how I never heard of tight Wad, Missouri neither. I'd love to know.

The should have Wikipedia at that for the background. So this guy, Johnny Lee Brown, who's seventy years old, he's still getting out there for seven You think like a seven year old just kind of calming down on crime, you know, don't you know? I think his age is important to point out because like, what's he got left to lose? If you want to go destroy an archaeological site. There's a lot of I'm not I'm not making an excuse for him. But it's seventy what's the three fine?

I think there's still seventy year olds running running Outlook, it's seven is still getting out, still getting at it, seven years old to co conspirators, and they start going down to this site from June. They're just getting in trouble or just getting you know, it's finalized, getting finalized now. But they were active from June September um looting these sites. Okay, so they believe this is a campsite where they're camping

processing stone. They were using handheld trial shovels, rakes, hose, buckets, and backpacks to take items away from the site. The indictment doesn't say what exactly they did with the stuff, but what they are saying is that this illegal excavation caused three hundred thousand dollars in damage, and the U. S.

Attorney's office in Kansas City is after the guy. There's there's a a bunch of like interesting tidbits in that story where they're like sometimes they'd be at the site for ten minutes, other times, you know, like many hours, which but at the same time they don't know exactly what they got away with. And I'm like, well, how do you know the timelines and and not know what they got? They don't know where a lot of what they got ended up. How about was fenced or moved,

or how they got nabbed, how they got caught? Someone turn them in or I think that must be it. I mean, there's there's a lot of some there's some sort of fuzzy documentation there that is probably gonna come out once the case is fully prosecuted, I would imagine, because like reading through the story, you're like, how like how how do you know? And not know? Is what

kind of the story reads. But it does overlap with UM a lot of interesting pending legislation that's coming down the pipe right now as far as UM you know, better protections for cultural sites on public ground, on on federally managed ground and state managed ground. I'm reading Carl Malcolm's favorite book. He always he always likes to cringe when I stay it's his favorite book. But he turned

thes a book called Black Range Tales. Oh yeah, it's it's mostly like the memoirs and recollections of a minor, a prospector and miner who is active in the eighteen eighties down in New Mexico in the Black Range, but all around that area. What's funny about is the first pay. I can't say this, never mind, never mind um. He talks about paying turkeys in that book. I almost just gave away a sweet turkey hunting spot. So in there

he talks about going in too. We were hunting not far from within the heat, within the heel of wilderness. There's a Pueblo site and we never made it over there. But we're hunting not far from a Pueblo site in the heel of wilderness, and this guy talks about going in there. And so he's talking in the eighties, looting a Pueblo site and him saying how in the eighties, he's saying, how it's picked over and most of the

good stuff is gone. But they walk away with a mummified body, but most of the good stuff is picked over. How old was the body? Does it? Say? Just as they had? And he talks about its history. It was sitting in some window. It was sitting in some window at a curio shop in some town in Arizona or New Mexico, can't remember where, And now that no one's

almost happened to it. But he was talking about in the eighteen eighties Ransack and Pueblo sites and he talks about they're still corn and jars and they didn't even know who the hell right in that year they had

lost track like who the people were? People are so like the fact that in that year it was sort of like a like the looting antiquities, you know, I mean those people who built that fathers and grandfathers were probably engaging with EU Americans the to kind of like jump back to like how you come up with that figure of three dollars when you don't really know? Yeah,

I don't get that, Yeah, I mean it. It has to be like we always talked about, like why you don't move artifacts because you you're destroying the story that is that the ground holds around the placement of that artifact. And I imagine that has to be part of it. Right, you're digging through all these soil layers, get rid of all the fossilized pollens and things like that, they could also tell a lot more about whatever they're pulling out

of the ground. Yeah, it's hard to sign a dollar alley to it, right, And that's a huge question mark of mine for this thing. I wonder if it had to reach a certain threshold to make it a certain level crime. That's a good thinking too. Do you have any artifacts related to the Lewis and Clark expedition. I do not, but at the Cultural Hair Descent and Pure they do have one of the peace medals and it was found and somebody turned it in and offered it to the museum, so they have that there. Um, can

you can you explain what that is? I'm not ready. I'm not ready to get this. Yeah, one last thing to say, and we'll talk about a rick Raw sites along the Missouri River though, because there are a lot of fishermen over the years and just other people who went out along along Lakewaukee the Missouri River, and when the river is down, a lot of those rick Raw

village sites are are exposed. And it's easy, I mean, you're just it's not a matter of really going out and excavating full scale, but it's easy to walk along and find a lot of different artifacts and a lot of buriable remains too. So I remember being a child and my mother and father invited out to a farmer's place for for dinner, and my younger brother and I went along and down in the den. There were six

human skulls that this man had in his den. Now, of course it's perfect completely illegal today, but those are the things that are readily available on the Missouri River. But it is of course illegal, you know, well illegal. And there is a case in Washington where a skull had eroded out of the out of a bank. Kennewick Man. Is that the ken wick Man story? It sounds like it. But you know, obviously trying to go to ah they were trying to get illegal access to watch a riverboat race.

I was just gonna say they were trying to sneak in to watch a race and found the kennewick Man. So a skull run eroding out. But then you know the cultural significance of these remains. The tribes are like, well, somebody buried this person that is most probably really aided to us. It's more than just a crime. It's a sacrilegious act. Yeah, well, that's I talked about stories that make their own gravy. That story makes his own gravy. They find the skull, okay, and they think they're looking

at like a murder victim. They don't know it's old. Someone comes out and realizes it's very old roading out of the river winds up. It's like a nine thousand it's a very old school. It's like a nine thousand year old skull. There's this thing called I can't remember what the hell it is, Like, what's that discipline. It's a much discredited discipline, forensic or not forensic craniology. Craniology. People said, you can look at a school and like

make all these deductions about intelligence and all that. So anyways, the guy takes a gander at it, A semi qualified individual takes a gander at it and says, hey, man, that's a caucasion male skull. That's nine thousand years old.

So then it introduces this whole crisis about like someone trying to say that this thing like that Native Americans weren't the origin, like right, that somehow there had been Europeans had made it here and pre dated whatever it brought into Like, it brought into open up question like who are the real Native Americans? How could this Caucasian person be there? It was so offensive what he was saying was so offensive to a tribe that was there. I can't remember what tribe it was that occupied that

land at the time of European contact. That they said, no one will ever look at this school again and put it away. Later it was allowed to be looked at, they put it away and they didn't want to view because they didn't want this conversation to take hold. Um in interesting wrinkle in this that people pointed out, but it never got taken seriously, it's nine thousand years ago. No one know, like whatever tribe is there now surely

hadn't even taken form. Like people moved so much yep, and every square inch of the country was one and fought over by Native American tribes. It wasn't like this, Like it wasn't like this monolithic group was like people that moved around and waged war with one another and conquered lands. But when they went through and did the DNA analysis to what they could, right, that's that's exactly

what it showed. Like several different tribes are like, oh, yeah, the this person is a part of now a much broader community because the genetic uh traits that this person has are distributed through this this much wider group. And uh the idea that it was a cock like the the idea that it was a European or Caucasian thing

was put to rest. Yeah, so the trip over a school when you're trying to sneak into a boat race, Yeah, you may not mean knowing what you're tripping over exactly, but this does have some good bearing on what we hopefully get into later with um. The question of whether or not to exhume Merryweather lewis right. Oh, I would dig him up right now. But I got one last thing to add that we're gonna get into. That one

last thing to add. I was telling you how it's gonna become a metal detecting enthusiast because my kids really interested metal detectors. We got a melo detector, and we're up at the little property where we camp all out um and metal detecting round. The kids are hoping to find a I don't gonna lie a horse shoe, which they found buried quite a bit quite a way is down,

which is interesting. No, my daughter Rosemary gets a hit on the metal detector, and I started digging, and I get down about a spade height down and turn the ground up and turn up a beautiful half kind of a broken but very worked piece of gorgeous black obsidian

ten inches underground makes you wonder what's high? You know, what it was that she hit with the metal detector struck off of was an old can lid, but like just like you're just like never ending right and you take a shovel and stick it down to ground and turned it over, like oh, there's a part of a projectile point and how many like chunks and nail and screw and stuff to do. I feel like we found a penny that's not that old. But I'm like, that

penny is forty two years old. They're like, oh my god, I feel like the next time we go up there, there's just gonna be holes. I started freaking out after a while, like, man, you guys gotta fill these holes. And they had holes everywhere, and then someone literally tripped in the hole. Yeah, yeah, they gotta go back and fill damn holes in man. They yeah, they had just played pocked with holes. It was funny as there's like an old piece of fencing that they must found that

same string of fencing. Like I'm like, if you notice everywhere you're digging is in a line, like you keep digging the same hunk of fence out, move right or left or whatever to get away from that fence. I had I had lost two arrows the year before and they found both. Sorry, I had lost three and they found two. So far, Yeah, totally fine. All right, right, Brad, Already we've been digging a Louis Clark hit me with hit me with a brief summation of what it was.

But here's the trick. You have to include with it, how Thomas Jefferson was saying, and if you run into a Willie mammoth, let me know, like what set up? Like why why do we what was Lewis and Clark supposed to be doing? You know? For Thomas Jefferson, first of all, just prefaces with the comment that you know

he'd been playing on this for twenty years. You know, it wasn't in a situation where a lot of times people think, okay, well, Louisiana purchase eighteen o three and then sent Lewis and Clark out eighteen o four to to investigate this new territory at the United States had just acquired. Jefferson had been thinking about this um he talked to George Rogers Clark back in seventeen eighty three. William Clark's older brother about doing an expedition across the

American West. George Rogers clark Um decline for personal reasons more than anything else. Sighties six, Jefferson is over in Paris. He meets a man from Connecticut by the name of John Ledyard. Ledyard says, I'll do this. I'll go from France and western Europe. I'll go across eastern Europe and go across Asia, come up on the western side of North America and then go back to the United States. And I'm losing. So he's going all the way around by himself. Where was he going to cross the Pacific?

He was gonna across the Bearing Strait area and then land on the west side of North America and then coming into the United States from the west, come down to Alaska, b c. And he made it as far as Russia and the Azarina. At that time Catherine said no, no, you're not going to go through. So that was ind of that expedition. Did he did part of it? He made it into Russia? Are you kidding me? Russia? Who's this game? John Ledyard is his name, A guy from

as Man himself by himself. And you know, I think that the story is that he was going to take his dog and him and then us. He was going to cross the Barring Sea, laying in Alaska and then and then work his way back to the United States. Right and what stopped him again of the Zarina at that time of Catherine. She refused to give him permission to Zarina Zariena instead of Bazar. We have the Empress Catherine.

So she was the one who said no, no, we're not going to grant your permission to come through Russia. You know, it seems like in that time he could have said like okay and then just left and kept going. One day, I'm coming down between I'm coming, I'm traveling south into Missoula. What's that? I pick up a hitchhiker. Okay, And he gets in the car and he said, man, it's got out of jail. And that made me nervous. I said, what were you in jail for it? He

goes hitchhiking. They let him out of jail. He walked out on his hitch like again, so you think he would have been like, okay, I understand, but then his win about his because like, Russia's a big place, I know, it's like what like who would know, right wandering through I do. It just also sounds exactly like, um, they're being like, yeah, so this is what we want and

here's the path. And this guy was thinking about doing this other trip the entire other time, and he was like, oh, yeah, I'll do that, but this is the way I think it's gonna work out the bass the trip that I already had planned. What was he gonna do if he got to I just don't think you should have asked permission some other time. It just seems like the weirdest move on his part. And part of the funding, of course, it is coming from Jefferson in the American Philosophical Society

to help fund his his trip. But um, you know you talked about big government and Lewis and Clark earlier, and I'll go along with that too here in a little bit. But um, in but one minute, I got one more question. Sure, if Jefferson is thinking about this, then I mean he just outright defying whoever owned it, right, So that's what That's why the permission thing with the Russian seems a little funny to me, because it's not like the um Spanish, right, the Spanish and California. Was

that was that who it was at that time. He had to get permission from the Spanish, he had to get permission from the British. And and actually when Jefferson started planning all this, he started pursuing getting visas permission. So he was gonna do it like formally, he was gonna do it the right way. But he knew that there would be resistance from not only people here in the United States wondering about the cost of this, and then the whole purpose behind it, because it was not

the United States territory? Why why was this so necessary? Um? The other thing is again the question of who controls what territory? So that area the Pacific Northwest, he had Russia, you had Britain, you had a Spanish, and then of course the United States comes along and we're gonna claim it for ourselves eventually too. If Jefferson was already planning that, was he also already thinking about how to get his hands on it, right? I mean was that not at

that point? I mean this is seventeen eighty six was the second time where he talked to John Ledyard. He just thought that this was something that was important for the sake of discovery. You know, he was such a inquisitive person. He was so knowledgeable about so many different things. He was interested in botany and zoology, he was interested in American Indians. He you know, he just had such a wide range of interest, and he thought this was

something that was very significant. Seen eight six, we're still a very young country. In seventeen ninety three, he contacted through the American Philosophical Society with a French naturalist by the name of Andre Mischou, and he made it as far as the Ohio River Valley, and they found out that he was actually going to be spying against Spanish post and so the United STATESID, no, we're not going to get involved with that. Everything you're saying so far

two is decades before Jefferson even becomes president. So what were his credentials at this point to like send people out on these adventures, his his interests. I mean, you have to keep in mind that he was a person who was a product of the Age of Enlightenment. He was just interested in learning as much as he possibly could, whether it was about religion or plant life or animal life, or or native cultures or whatever it might have been. Geography, geology.

I mean, he was just such a well rounded person from that product of the Age of Enlightenment, that president or not. I mean, he just thought that this was very important to do, and so when he became the third president I had says he was actually in that

position to do something about it. And that's when we started seeing the everything falling in the place might say, was there every scenario where he's like, I'm just gonna do it myself, or did he not think he was like qualified or had the time, or why why wasn't he the one doing it? You know, Jefferson never ever considered himself being a position or a person who would undertake such a thing. He that was always something that he would find. Tobacco he had. He's a francophile, I

had book story right, all right, he was. He was a person that well read, but not not the adventuresome type that was going to go out and undertake an expedition like this. There's no way, you said, John Ledyards. Uh. He just took off with his dog, which really really interests me because I think people love the story of dogs and they don't get told very well. So I was gonna tell Spencer we got to write this down

for a future series. And uh, one of the first hits on the on the Google machine here is the making of John Ledyard Time to Eat the Dogs, which you can kind of infer as to what happened on that trip. But of course Lewis ended up taking his dog with him Newfoundland Seamen was the dog's name, and made it all the way out to the Pacific Northwest and back, you know. And at the same time, I think one historian figured out that they probably ate over

two hundred dogs during the expedition. Mm hmm. I have all these pictures of eating dogs in Vietnam, and I'm alway afraid to put him on social media, but maybe that'd be my in as I can mention that in

honor Lewis and Clark. Uh. Okay, what's next? Well, I think we're up to the point now where like Louis gets tapped for this adventure right right, he he was appointed by Jefferson to be his personal secretary with the intent that he was going to start learning uh whatever he might need to know as far as plant life, medicine, zoology,

uh and and prepare for this expedition. What did that role mean then being a personal secretary, being a right hand person, a record like a record keeper, and not so much and as far as being a secretary as we think maybe in today's context, but a person who was an assistant, who would help Jefferson with other plans, help him prepare for this expedition. And when the whole idea of Louisiana purchase came about later that year, everything just fell into place very perfectly. You know, it was

just you couldn't ask for a better situation. And so but the interesting thing is that it was on January three that Jefferson delivers his confidential message to Congress asking for an appropriation of two thousand, five hundred dollars confidential because he knew that there would be a lot of people here in the United States. They would also, says, to explore some unknown territory at what a government waste, right, And of course that was an initial appropriation of the amount.

When you look at it overall, by the time they came back, and how the men were paid per month, and how they received land allotments, you know, you're you're looking at this exhibition costing maybe closer to forty year fifty thousand dollars back at that time, you know, so it would be quite a bit more substantial today. So it certainly wasn't a situation really for two thousand, five hundred dollars they funded this entire expedition. That was just

simply an initial appropriation they spent. The government has been a lot more money. And then with the with the Louisiana purchase, there's the thing that they've been totally around is they ended up selling it to us as sort of um like as air strategic move right around. It was around like that they were going to lose it anyway. Well, you know, the whole idea of the Louisiana Territory. It became known as Louisiana territory all the way back to two with a Roberto Lacel who claimed that area for

King Louis the four of France. And then after the French and Indian War ended in seventeen sixty three, the western part, that area west of the of the Mississippi River that became Spanish controlled, and then it went from Spain back to France right around eighteen hundred with a Treaty of Sandolfonso, and that's that's when the United States really started becoming war concerned more about having access to the river and getting through the area of New Orleans.

And so Jefferson sent Robert Livingston and James Monroe, two very notable figures in American history, of course, and to negotiate with Napoleon representatives. And so they went over to Paris and negotiated. Napoleon had other issues, I mean, he was he was thinking about Europe. His his project in the Caribbean had fallen flat because of disease, and he

really didn't want that area Louisiana anymore. And so, uh, the whole idea was that Jefferson told Monroe and Livingston offer go up as high as ten million dollars for New Orleans, just for New Orleans. And it was Napoleon representatives who came back and said, what about Louisiana territory for what turned out to be about fifteen million dollars. Now Here, here are two individuals who can't just get on the phone and contact Jefferson, say hey, what are

we supposed to do? You know? So they they went ahead and they signed the Louisiana Agreement on April eighteen o three, and keep in mind that Jefferson had had delivered that confidential message to Congress in January of eighteen o three, you know, so he was already planning this. But the fact that the Louisiana purchase was signed in April, and then you have Jefferson's really well known instructions to Jefferson on June eighteen o three and say, hey, this

is what I want you to do. I want you to study this and this and this and this, all these very specific directions. It wasn't until around the fourth of July eighteen o three when news of Louisiana purchase arrived in Washington, d C. And even at that Jefferson can't make that kind of agreement. He's the president. Treaties have to be ratified by the Senate, and it wasn't until October of eighteen o three that the Senate finally

ratified the Louisiana treaty. Well, now it all makes a lot more sense, you know, we have you know, we double the size the United States, and so it makes more sense to go out and explore it, certainly. But it's just the idea that so many people think that we bought it and then we decided that He's like, well,

I bought it now put together by October. By the time the treaty was ratified, uh Lewis and Clark were already making all kinds of of plans and and uh they were, you know, like I said, they met at the Ohio Falls and and I went down to the Wood River area, and they're going to spend the winter of eighteen o three to eighteen o four recruiting soldiers

to go along with him. You know, when when uh Lewis was first thinking about this, Jefferson that well, and you know, if you take a take ten or twelve men with you. You know, from the time they left the Missouri up until the the Hadats and the Mandan and the rick Raw villages in North Dakota, it was closer to four dozen. Because you had the two captains, actually Captain merrywether Lewis Lieutenant William Clark, although they both

went by captains. You had three sergeants. Initially, the one sergeant, Charles Floyd, was the only member the expedition to to die along the way. He was replaced by a vote of the men. Uh and he was replaced by Patrick Gass. You had about two dozen privates and they Wasn't Prior was prior officer. He was one of the sergeants, Nathaniel Prior. Right, you had initially John Wardway who was really the third

in command. Or you want to look at Lewis and Clark as being the co commanders, certainly John Ord where Sergeant John Order would have been the next in command. And then you have um Charles Floyd, the one who died of a penacitis attack is what they believed by Sioux City. And then you had Nathaniel Prior, and then Patrick ass was one who replaced Charles Floyd later by

vote of the of the men. And when they were doing this recruiting, they were strategically trying to get unmarried men with no families, right, that was that was a big part of it. And these are people from you know, they look at a UM George Shannon, for example, he was in his late teens. You know, he was very young. Uh. He has the notorious reputation of being the guy who got lost more often than anybody else. Uh. But you have George Shannon, then you have Lewis and Clark who

are in their late twenties early thirties. Uh, you have Louis celebrating his thirty first birthday in August of eighteen o five. You know, like Seth and Chester, they're young, they're young Halliday Spencer, It's like you, now, what what did uh fifteen million dollar transaction look like then? Were we like shipping them a literal boatload of money or

was there some assets? How does that happen? No, it's it's just basically through the funding over a period of time, So it wasn't one big lump sum or anything like that. The other thing that I think is really important to point out for fifteen million dollars, what did the United States actually acquire political authority? We did not buy any land. A lot of times people think about fifteen million dollars. We we double the size physically double the size the

United States. If that had been the case, then there would never have been a need for any other treaties with Indian nations to acquire land, like the the Laramie Treaty of eighteen sixty eight or anything like that. But we spent way more than fifteen million dollars. When you look at the nineteenth century and all the different treaties for land that the United States entered into with different

Indian nations. It's so funny. We were told, you know, every year by a new teacher in Montana growing up, that we were acquired the Louisiana purchase for a penny and acre. Anytime you can get land for a penny and acre, it doesn't matter if it's pick it up when you know, when you look at it. Overall, it was the political authority because it had gone from the French to the Spanish back to the French, and now

the United States had the political authority. And that was one of the things that Lewis and Clark were supposed to do when they engage with these different Indian nations, they're supposed to say, you are now under American authority. Don't don't trade with the British, don't trade with the Spanish, don't trade with anybody else. You trade only with American traders from now on. You are now under the United

States authority. They're like, you guys all look the same guy. Yeah, you can imagine if someone sold you uh political authority over the northwest region of of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Okay, so someone sells you the political authority over it there's still a bit of work to be done there. I mean, like there's a lot of you were gonna be like what or what now? You know, this is going like way beyond the expedition now, But did we ever consider

selling it back or selling it to someone else? No, it was ours and we were keeping it right absolutely, and in fact now the incentive was to keep going, you know, to claim that territory of the Pacific Northwest and eventually look at the the American Southwest and acquiring that too, which which we did. Uh by the eighteen forties, you know, the late eighteen forties, there was just one

big step as far as American expansion westwards. Certainly, so when Louis was tapped to do this, he had to like be a botanist and an archaeologist and a hunter and a politician and a fisherman, an artist and a doctor. Did he have those skills before he was chosen for this job or did he like gain those qualifications after it was decided he gained those because a lot of people were very critical of why Lewis, and Lewis is

not a trained naturalist. He doesn't know anything about plants or animals, you know, why why why choose him to leave the Sex But edition. But when he was chosen and the expedition started to be planned, one of the things that Jefferson did is arranged for him to go to Philadelphia and to be basically tutored with a number of individuals to learn about. For example, Benjamin Smith Barton.

He was the one who who tutored Jefferson on how to preserve different specimens where there's plants specimens or animal specimens anything like that. So he was very important about it. Uh, you have Casper Wistar, who was very interested in paleontology, you know, so to bring out questions like okay, now if you find animals that we think are extinct back here, you know, we want you to be especially on the lookout for those, you know, are there still mammoths or

masodon's out there or anything like that. Not that he knew or or fully expected that there was, but that was one of the things that you know, if you're out there, this is what we also want you to to look for any signs of of of animals that might be extinct. By now you have Dr Benjamin Rush, who again a very well known in person from the American Revolutionary period, and he was considered to be the

pre eminent physician at the time. Uh. And one of the things that, of course you think of with with Rush and the Lewis and Clark expedition is that Lewis arranged to take fifty dozen of Russia's pills with them. Now, these Russia's pills, these were these were kind of Lewis's cure all. You know, he did learn some medical things from from Russia, certainly, but the whole idea is that, oh, you're not feeling well, Um, you have loose bowel movements. Here,

take Russia's pills. What were the pills. They were loaded with a lot of mercury. They were super powerful laxatives. Uh. They called them Russia's thunderbolts. And in many cases, if you're dealing with stuff like dysentery, absolutely the last the worst thing that you should possibly be taking is Russia's thunderbowls. You know, the thunderbowls, thunderclappers. They were there, these really

powerful laxatives. But that's what Lewis did. You're not feeling well, here to take take these, take some of these, and that they think it would clear out that and blood letting, where two of his main medical practices. What was that with leeches or just with cutting you um, the cutting that they had, the actual basins that you would rest your arm on and they would cut your wrist and let it bleed out and try to get some of

that bad blood out of your system. And and again to medical practices that were probably the most common, and yet they were they were probably medical practice that you probably surprised, Wow, we didn't kill some of our own men. I had often read that. Uh, you'll see where they say the only physical evidence left of the expedition is where Clark carved his name into Pompey's pillar. Okay, east

of Billings, Montana. Right then, someone said no, because at the at the camp site, at the where Lolo Creek flows into the Bitter Root Traveler's Rest, they found traces of that mercury. Is that true? That's that's one of the things that archaeologists look for, you know, depending where you are on the Lewis and Clark Trail, I mean through South Dakota. We know that they went to Spirit Mound now in the very southeastern part of the state.

But other than that, we have four dams along the Missouri River in South Dakota now that have created these huge lakes, and so things like a Rick Rick Aros villages are now inundated by by Lake Hawaii, for example. But when archaeologists looked to find a possible camp site, and keep in mind this is a military expedition, and so even when they set up camp, it had to be set up a certain way, which meant that even the latrine area was a certain distance from the main camp.

And because they took so many of these russiest pills and and even the sad that they used for treating the men who had syphilis had so much mercury in at that when archaeologists start looking into the ground, if they can find a heavy concentration of mercury, they oh, this might be one of the latrine areas of the Lewis and Clark expedition. So that that use of mercury back then was was very common and they used it

a lot. Okay, uh all right, back when they picked their guys, they went up with some some some rascals, they did, uh uh. They they had some really good qualified individuals, certainly, but there were there were because it was a military expedition. They had at least at least seven different court martials along the way, and you know, some of it varied from sleeping on duty, which was a serious offense. Some of it was just a few

days after the expedition began. Two the men went back and and got drunk, and so they had to pay the price. Uh. You have Moses Reed, who was a deserter who was finally caught and he was punished accordingly. He had to run the gauntlet four times with a cat of nine tails. Every man had one of those, and he had to run that gauntlet four times. That means getting lashed. Getting lashed, Yeah, here ran right through them and they every person had to strike him and

they did that four times to him. And the thing, yeah, cat of nine tales the whips with the nine different strings on the end, and so it's not being struck just by one whip, it's really being struck by nine at the same time. And he had to do that. Every item used for other than this gauntlet. It was a military expedition that was that was absolutely such a bizarre thing. A trip like that, Why would you want somebody there who doesn't want to be there? I was like,

all right, see you and uh, you know. The last one was John Newman, who was accused of mutinous expressions when they reached when they reached the rick Raw villages in October. They spent October eight through the twelfth with the rick Raw north central part of South Dakota, and John Newman was at any time they had these court martials. It was a trial of your peers. Lewis and Clark

were not involved. The sergeants. One of the sergeants presided, you had the men, some of the men who served as a jury, and they determined if a person was guilty or not. And John Newman was found guilty and he was given seventy five lashes on the bare back. And the thing that the nine tails, cat of nine tails exactly, and there was a them no, I mean,

just just have one just for you. I'm pretty sure there was one in in a shop down here on Main Street were Adam and Eves store, a little through store down there on Main Street yesterday a cat of nine tails. I'm pretty sure that's what that was down there in the bottom of the case. I didn't inspect it through, I don't think that and hanging on the wall. But the books. Yeah, they had these uh these the leather swimsuits with the little studs and stuff right next

the magic right next to that. Well that even even at that when they were punished, you know, the one a rick Row leader, eagle Feather, he started wailing because he could't imagine, why are you punishing one of your own people like this. It's one thing when you punish the enemy because they're the enemy, But to punish one of your own people like that, he just couldn't understand

why they would even do such a thing. And the thing of it is that when whenever these men received you know, twenty five lashes, fifty lashes, one hundred lashes, a newman received seventy five lashes, It's not like, okay, well you have a couple of days to recover. No, you're back to work. You know you're not gonna get a few days off from manual labor because you did something wrong. What was his mutinous expression? It doesn't really

say you. And the journalist says that he was mutinous expressions, and so he said, so I'm like, you know, what we ought to do? Is his head back on, you know, something that he was told to do something he'd he disobeyed, and he was he was very for Newman. He was very apologetic. He because he was dismissed from the expedition. He was sent back in April of eighteen oh five, and he really did work extra hard to try to make amends and everything. But they said, no, no, it's

too late, you know. So whatever he said, whatever he did, that qualified as mutinous expressions. It was enough for them to say. And maybe it was just the fact that they're setting an example that no, when you're told to do something, you have you have to do something. I mean,

it was a military expedition. I don't flogg this to continue flogging about the flogging, but like, do they are there reports of like how bad the uh, the wounds were from getting something like seventy five they would have to be pretty severe, yeah, I mean, and like open wounds and something that we might even stitch up today. And then of course having somebody like Lewis Prood provides have to try to speed the healing and everything. But yeah, yeah,

it's a lot of the stabb said Mercury. Like I said, for when they treated them in with syphilis, A lot of that sabb had had a lot of mercury in it as well. But yeah, they it was a military expedition first and foremost. How many of the guys that went, we're in the military prior to getting enlisted, Like Coulter wasn't a military guy. No, Um, most of them were. Like I said, there were at least two and privates that were already in the middle recruiting from the military.

But then you have other people like George drewry Or, who was noted for being the best hunter of the group, and he he was. He was brought along for not only for his hunting proficiency, but also the fact that he he could do sign language, and so knowing that they would meet dozens of different groups of people, having that ability to have sign language was considered to be very important. Drewyer was was French Canadian on his father's side and Shawnee on his mother's side. There was a

universal sign language. It was very common. Yeah, actually a lot of the mountain men had this universal sign language. But at the same time you have to think how well did this really convey what they were saying. I mean, you start talking about the white father in Washington, d C. I mean, that's that's all foreign and how do you how do you actually put that into a sign language.

So the whole idea of using gestures was used, but there was there was a lot of confusion with it, and they were fortunate they did have interpreters along the way, people whom they met along the way who served as interpreters, and so in some cases that proved to be very important. In other cases, when you talk about to San Charboneau and Chicago, wea, and I'll say Chicago, we have because

there will be other people who will say Sacajawea. But in the case of to San Charboneau and Chicago, wea, you have it going from English to French to Hadotza eventually to Shoshone. And then if you're gonna have a reply, now, I asked, go from Shoshone to Hadotza to French to English. And you have to wonder how much is lost in that communication when you're trying to translate it. That many times there were new things at it in absolutely can

we narrow win on Chicago and her husband for a minute? Uh, my kids brought home from the library. They brought home a book. Um, it was kind of like highlighting different Western figures. I came right at the hell of the book. But I remember this chapter and it talked about not only how little is known about her, but it talked about how she became like the individuals throughout American history who elevated her to the position that she is. And it laid out in very simple short form like here

is what is actually known about this person. I was shocked how little is known about her. Absolutely, they don't know she lived to be old age. It's like she was a teen, right, she's a teen bride right? Well, like what is like? I couldn't believe how little is

known about her? And then what people have extrapolated from that exactly there there's a lot of controversy when I when I was growing up, it was sacka Jewiah with a J And now most historians will say, psychago wea Now I'm gonna stick with Sacha out of this area whole day lifetime that now in this area is gonna sacka Jerwia. I mean she she was born in the

area of sam And, Idaho. And and you know, so I just uh twice I've been to the Wind River Indian Reservation where they have the Saka Juwia Cemetery, and they talked about how she was very significant to the Lews and Clark expedition. Um, she was a guide, she was interpreter, her presence was important, all these different things. Most historians again will say that it was probably Psychagowa, which means something completely different. Saka Juwia is a Shoshone word,

which she was Shoshoni. She was probably eleven or twelve years old when she was taken by by the Haddatzas. But like she was kidnapped in the act of war right, right, she was sold to The story is at Toussaint won her in gaming, like one of the one or whatever, and well, yeah, they had a different uh different games of gambling of a risk, you know, like which hand is it in and you know things like that, and uh, that's very simple. It's not like he fell in love

with her. He won her through gambling. Well, let's back up it. We now know that she was born in Salmon around Salmon, right, a rating party of Hadazza right kidnapped her whenever, and she ended up eventually with the Mandan and the Hadatsa villages. When Lewis and Clark came across her actually through through to San Charboneau. Again she was probably he had one her gambling right, and he had had two eyes with her at one at that time.

And that was the thing. You know, which one is buried in in on the Wind River Indian Reservation and which one died in north central South Dakota at Fort Manuel. Lisa. Uh was not get ahead of ourselves, okay. So it was she's pregnant when they encounter her, right, Uh, she was pregnant. She was probably seventeen or eighteen years old at that time, and on she was having a very difficult time with the delivery of the child. And one of the interpreters are one of the Frenchmen who were

at the camp of the time in ata Psalm. He said, well, he's seen it happen where you take the addle of a snake and you grind it up to powder and you diluted with water and have the woman drink that. They did that and shortly thereafter she gave birth. About so whether it whether it worked or not, I mean, it's it's sad to say, but that was February eleven, eighteen o five that Jean Baptiste Sharbonneau was born then. But but they wanted Louis and Clark wanted Charbonnet to

accompany them because he was fluent in a couple of languages. Correct, he was fluent in a couple of languages. But the fact that his his wife's Chicago Wea was was sho Shone, they knew that that was probably gonna be the next nation whom they would meet. And they knew that the farther west they would go, the more likely they were to come into contact with the Indians who had horses.

And so they realized that it's nice to have Charbonne along, but it's really nice to have his wife come along too, to have Icago wig along. And then they knew this. They knew about the shi because of just the knowledge of trade networks, especially with those Uh village cultures, the rick around the hadants Uh in the Man then those were those were centers, trade centers, and they would be groups from a wide area that would eventually come in and they would trade in those areas and then they'd

go back to their their locations. And so, yeah, they knew about the Shoshony, they knew about the Cheyenne, they knew about uh, all the other different groups that they traded extensively, and so they knew that, yeah, here's here's uh their bit of advice. You know, the farther north or farther west you go, you were come in contact with tribes that will have horses, and the Shoshoni will

be one of those. And that that proved to be one of the most fascinating stories, I guess is when the Lewis and Clark expedition met with the Shoshony after they left April seventh, they went April, May, June, July. It wasn't until August before they finally saw another human being and that was the Shoshoni nation. And that's when

that's not another human being, right, nobody. There was one story where they said that Lewis and three of the men were going in advance and they saw a person on horseback, and so Lewis was pretty excited and he had asked Chicago, wea before, how do you say white man in Shoshone? And of course through the translations, that came out taba bone. And so as Lewis is approaching this person on horseback, he rolls up his shirt sleeve and he yells out taba bone, taba bone, trying to

indicate that he's a white person. Well, the person takes off and run, takes off and on his horse on in a different direction. And I've come to find out that you know what, if you've never seen a white man, there probably isn't a word for white man. Taba bone was a Shoshony word meaning stranger. So here he is approaching this person yelling I'm a stranger, I'm a stranger, and the person takes off, which which makes sense. Later others joined came in and confronted a lois what area

were they passing through? They went that many months, don't conjuring anyone all on the Missouri at this point. I mean they left like a April seven and there was months going up the Missouri River, and and uh, that's like my dream hunting or fishing trip. Like you when you leave and you're like, god, there's still nobody here. Smallpox was ripping out ahead of them. Back in the seventy nineties there was a huge smallpox epidemic and that

had really decimated the Areca people quite a bit. I mean that at one point there were probably thirty two Aricaw villages when luc and Clark meet them. There's three you know, so a lot of those populations that had died because of the small box. The next big small pox up it could be in the eighteen thirties. I just want to finish up on Zach. Did you were real quick? Sure? Uh? In your mind? No one really

knows the answered this. But she's kidnapped as a child, which was common practice, and then get some semblance of freedom when she gets won by Charbonneau. What would have prevent to someone from saying I am gonna go back home? Is it just it's so far. I think part of it being so young when she captive in this guy. And I think part of it too, is that this is the social expectations that she is now property of

this particular person. I hate to use the term married, because she was really more more of the property than anything else. So when they when they take off and they eventually get to the Shoshonee, Lewis and has been are there first. A day or two later, Clark shows up and Skaga we as with them, and they're they're excited because you know she's going to be able to

speak language. And as they sit down to negotiating, and they're gonna, you know, go through their whole spield as far as you're now un American authority and everything, but they're also interested in acquiring horses to get over the mountains.

And all of a sudden, Chicago Wea leaps up and she gives out this this exclamation, and she goes over and she realized that the shohon A leader is her brother, whom she has not seen since she's kidnapped at the age eleven or twelve, So that her brother come Await was the leader of the showny. And again, you could write a novel better for that, the fact that now they know, okay, we're gonna get her horses, We're we're gonna be okay, we'll get people to guide us over

the mountains, and everything else. Because of this connection between Chicago Weea and come Await, this thing I read about what's actually known about her, it got into that, and it got into this other very telling This very telling thing about her that's sort of like helped form the mythology around her is that when they get close to the Pacific, there's some reason why they're gonna go look at it. But she's not invited to go look at it.

But he even points out in his journal she wanted so badly to see the ocean, and he's like, she came all this way, how could we deny her? And so that is where stem this like explorer curiosity, right that he like, because they're so sparse with what they talk about with personnel, the fact that he like took note of it suggests that there was this, right, this

intense curiosity in her. Right, Yeah, you're right that there there's actually when you read through the journals, there's very few references to her, or they might just refer to charbonas a woman. They might refer to the snake woman, the Shoshone woman. Um. At one point they did call the river bird woman's river, which in the Hadatsa language

that would be ssicago wea. And that's the only time in the journals that I know of where they actually tried to spell it phonetically with a hard G sound, cicago weia, you know. And then of course in North Dakota they use the case ocakawa, you know. So, but with what you're talking about, you know, as far as a guide, which is what they started getting into her homeland area, she they started, she started to recognize certain

places like Beaverhead Rock for example. Um, and it's one of those that when you come around the curve, you're think, oh, that must be beaver Rock because it looks just like a beaver said. You know, So she you some of those places where she grew up. Has you ever been to the Pacific? No, she had never been to Pacific before, and so when she gets out the Pacific, there's there's a couple of very notable things. One that you're talking about is that there is a whale that's washed up

on the on the shore. She wants to see this, you know. She she's heard them talking about this, and so she wants to go and actually look at this huge fish. This the whale that had had washed up on the shoreline. And she was pretty demanding that this is what she wanted to do, and so they allowed

you to go and see it. Um. The other thing that was very interesting, and this is where she really develops her legacy, is that there's not a whole lot about her in the journals per se, but it's in the late nineteenth century when she really becomes kind of the heroine of the women's suffrage movement, because in November of eighteen o five, when they get out to the Pacific northwest, of trying to decide, okay, we're gonna put our winter quarters and Lewis and Clark, even though it's

a military expedition, they could have just simply said, Okay, this is the way it's going to be. They went around, and some people call it a vote. Some people say no, they just took a poll, semantics. But they went around. They asked all the members of the exhibition, except for the child, of course, where they thought the winter quarters should be, which meant that they asked Chicago Wea, a young teenage American Indian woman, what she thought, not even married.

But it's point but it's it's pointed out that they did ask her, or they that that they conducted a poll that or vote, however you want to say it. And UH asked all the members and the two most notable was Chicago Wea because American Indians, of course, weren't collectively considered American citizens until until ninety four, so this is long before that, this is eighteen o five. And the other one is that, of course, UH women not having the right to vote until the ninethe of Mement

in nineteen twenty. You know, so this is years and years beyond the opportunity for women to actually vote. But I gotta re ask my question. Sure do they say that they specifically included her in the voting? Okay, that's what I was curious, because they might have said we asked everybody, but then in fact didn't even ask her. Christian was a woman. Because it's also noted that York gets input as well, which ends up being like the first time a black person got to vote in America

exactly eighteen o five. And again you look at it. Slavery wasn't abolished until the Thirteenth Amendment in eighteen sixty five, So this is sixty years before slavery is abolished. And then you look at the fifteenth AMENDMA, the granted African American men the right to vote. Well, that was until eighteen seventies, so this is sixty five years before um, black men could vote. We better hit on this real quick now that we're put in sacke we behind us in the story for a minute. They had a slave.

Was his workload different than everybody else's workload? No? Um, he he was actually a childhood friend of Clark's. They grew up together. When Clark was asked to go along with this expedition, it's just the only the same natural that his servant, York would would come with him. But he's not on payroll. He's not on payroll. But in a in a way, he becomes is one of the guys. I mean, he's allowed to go hunting. Slaves aren't allowed to carry weapons, you know, but he's allowed to go hunting.

He becomes one of the guys. He he becomes a very notable member of the of the expedition, and at the same time, when they return, he goes back to being part of slave life. You know that Clark even at one point said that he had to uh punished York to keep him, keep him the same reference, that he was nothing but a slave. But was I thought he uh he didn't free him freedom after the expedition. No, uh,

there there are several different stories. One is that he York married and that he actually moved out west settled down with American Indian tribe. Others that he uh he stayed with with Clark for a period of time and then eventually left. But there really is not a whole lot known about what happens to York afterwards. I mean, we know that he returns with with Clark Uh in eighteen o six and he reverts to the slave life again.

It he didn't free him, No, that was in fact a lot of people want to Yeah, they really wanted to be freed. I feel like a lot of the like middle school history books, the story of York ends after the expedition, that you don't realize that, like York asked for his freedom even and like I think, didn't he have a wife in Tennessee, maybe that he has to go live with and and he was still telled though, right, And I think one one version of it is that he became a um a wagon master. You know, he

would hull freight with wagons. So there's several different stories as far as what happened to York, but there's really nothing definitive. Now you asked about his workload. One place I think his workload was different was having sex with Uh tribeswomen feel like that was part of the workload. Well,

the references they were impressed by him. They had never seen a person with black skin before um and they would do this practice of like spiritual power passing, and York was unique in that sense, right, right, No, it was, it was and and and not just York. I mean even even the members of other members of the expedition because they were white. You know, that was something that

was part of this this mystique. Uh. It sounds pretty risky, sounds you know, like it was just uh, inappropriate behavior, but it was. It was a culturally accepted situation where when Lewis and Clark met with the Teeth and One Lakota, uh, they were offered women, but apparently nobody, according to the journals, nobody accepted those offers. When they get to the Ricara, that's when they does he specifically say no, one accepted. Yes. Clark had a quote he said something that he uh,

I can't remember. He waved or he wavered. I think he said he wavered. Now people wandered down, you know, like you wavered, you hessitated, then you accepted or do you wave it and just say no, no, thank you. And so there's nothing in the journals that that indicate at any time that Lewis or Clark engaged in these these kind of relaytionships. But when they get to the Ricara. Uh,

they're they're fascinated with york In. In the recall language, he was referred to as as big medicine, big medicine in the sense that what you're talking about, Spencer, is that there was a belief among some of these different tribes that certain medicine, certain spiritual powers could be transferred from one person to the next. For example, when they were with the the winner that they're with the Mandan Indians.

The Mandan had what was called a medicine dance or a buffalo calling dance, and the way it works, and they're very explicit that that they go into a lot of details far as what men were engaging these relations, who was suffering from from venereal disease, who was being treated for what. Nothing again about Lewis or Clark specifically, but in the case of the journals. On January five, eighteen o five, we sent one of our men to the medicine dance last night. They offered him for women.

The way it was supposed to work is that you would have a group of elders in who would be in the lodge, and then younger men with their wives would come in and the younger men would offer their wives to the elders. And they described it as the elders would go off and do their business, and then the woman would return and then she would have relations with her husband. It was more of a generational type of transfer of power, if you will, our spiritual power medicine.

But now that you have whites, it's also the same thing to transfer power from a white man to one of the one of the members of the tribe. Or in the case of your special fascination, the fact that he was was dark skinned, and uh, you know that there's a very well known painting by Charles Russell where they're in a lodge and and you see these people coming up and touching his skin and the texture of his hair, and because they're just completely mystified. They they've

never seen a person of this kind of statue. And and uh, like I said, the color of his skin and and everything about him, it was something that they considered to be very spiritual. Are much big medicine, And so, yeah, he was offered a lot of women. Yeah, the Ricara specifically, there was a warrior that was so set on York having sex with his wife or whatever that the warrior offered a stand guard outside the lodge while York was inside,

just to give him privacy, right, and it was a commonplace. Now. I think a big part of that is too about um, the knowing, you know, the fact that this arrangement has been made. Uh. There were other situations in which some of the Mountain men, especially when you think of the Ashley Party in three, where they two of the men sneaked into the Ricara villages to have these relationships and

they were caught. And that's what rigored, really triggers the the whole situation between the Ricara attacking the Ashley Party, because that was something that was not arranged, you know. But in this case, the arranged situations between the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the various tribes that was that was just that it was arranged. You know.

There's a fun anecdote about the vulnerabilities of of sort of the the hazards of journal reading in in Evan s Connell's book Son of the Morning Star, where he describes there's this doctor who is among the party that finds Costers command after it slaughtered, and he describes in great detail everything he saw, everything he did, right, everything

everybody did. But the doctor makes a debut in someone else's journal where someone else describes how the doctor tried to pull had found a body of an Indian, had tried to pull it is very hot, the carcasses were starting to rot. Had tried to pull the shoes off of Indian and his skin slipped, and the doctor vomited. And has pointed out that that's the one thing that doctor seemed to omit from his own journal that day. Right, So like there's like a little bit of right no

one's been especially when you're commanders. I mean, it's easy to talk about, you know, this person and this person and how they engaged the relations on how they're suffering from fineerial disease, But when you're the commanders, do you put that in there? Nobody did, and they and there were at least eight individuals who kept journals, but nobody in any of the journals recorded anything about Louis or

Clark specifically engaging in these relations. But there were individuals later on in the nineteenth century who who claimed that, uh, they were fathered by either Mary whether Lewis or by William Clark. Yeah, that was gonna be my next question is gott there's got to be descendants from these relations

from multiple tribes too. Yeah, And they talked about individuals who would have a certain African American characteristics, you know, the broad nose, the texture of the hair and things like that, and they think, well, that's that's york Um. In the case of the nez Pers, there was one by the name of Daytime Smoker who had a reddish tint to his hair, and according to their family's tradition,

William Clark was a father. Well then he had. There might have been other red haired, red haired individuals on the expedition, but we do know that Clark had red hair, but that was always their tradition. In South Dakota, there is a family who for over two hundred years, I mean going back to when the Lewis and Clark expedition met the Titouana Lakota in the pier Fort Peer area. Their claim is that Lewis fathered a child there. Now, Lewis probably had no idea that that might have been

the case if he didn't. Lewis never married, he never had any children that we know of, but this family's oral tradition is that he fathered a child, and that when that person became in his late sixties, he was actually baptized and his he took the name Joseph de Smit Lewis. His grave site is on the St. Alban Cemetery and a lower rural reservation in South Dakota, and when you go there you see the huge grave marker and then it says uh son of Ry Whether Lewis

of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition. His baptismal records are at the Center for Western Studies at Augustana University in Swoux Falls. But that's the question. So what it says on the certificate that the father was Mary whether Lewis, How are you going to prove that? And this has been part of the family's oral history for for well ever since you know back he would have been born in eighteen o five. But the thing of it is this family has tried and spent a fair amount of

money trying to make the d n A connections. Now because Lewis did not have any known children, but there are other Lewis members of the family that are out there, and so they have tried extensively to try to say, let's let's find out. You know, if if our oral history is right, well, then we should we should be noted for that that Marywether Lewis was the father of such and such person way back on, a great great great great grandfather and song if if not, well, then

and then we know, you know. So the family just really wants to know. And uh that's trying to make that connection to do the DNA studies. So they've they've spent a fair amount of money investing into this, uh, going through a different DNA groups and and uh, they really just want to know. And this is it is kind of why I brought up the Kennewick man, uh and the controversies around that, right and in that word,

to sacrilege. Right, So Merryweather Lewis is is is buried, and we can't exume him just for the sake of science. We need a living relative to say, you know what, it's okay with us if you exume him. And and they've actually taken this to court, and uh it's just the policy of the National Park Service that when those requests were made denied and said no, we the National Park Services not allow anybody to be exhumed and to be studied, of course with a Lewis situation. Wasn't murder?

Was a suicide. People who knew him best at that time, they thought suicide. They could see that, you know, he had these bouts of what Steven Ambrose referred to as melancholy and depression. He had other health problems. He was dealing with some very serious political issues at the time. That's why he was heading back to Washington, d C. But the super large doses of mercury can mess with the person's absolutely brain and are one of my nervous system right right, So so what might have you know

if it was something physical, was it something psychological? Was that a combination? But even a couple of weeks before his death, they said that he had to be restrained because he was threatening to injure himself, you know. So the timeline leads a lot of people to say that he was having issues and that he took his own life. The other thing is he was shot twice. Once was he grazed, his head grazed, and then he had one in the in the in the stomach area, in the

abdomen and he did not die immediately. He did live until the morning the next morning and that's when he died. So what what other people say that Lewis no, no, no, not married with us. He would never take his own life, never do that, you know, he was too great of a person and so on, and so they want to they want to exhume the body, do the forensics and

determine at what angles were these shots made. You know, was this something that he could have inflicted himself, or was this situation where it's more like somebody shot at him, you know so, but at this point, the National Park Service has no no indication that that they're willing to allow for an exhimation of the body. If he was assassinated, walk us through like the potential killers. There are some

who say that it might have been politically motivated. There are others who simply say that he was he was robbed, you know, so if it was the situation where somebody did shoot him. Again, it depends on which story you want to go with, because there are those who say that that people back in the in the territory that they wanted Louis gone. There were people that felt that he was not doing a very good job as as

the governor of the territory. Um, then there were other people who just simply said that he was probably just robbed. You know, there was a not just trace in Tennessee, and it was a place that was known for people to rob others along the way, and that might have been the case as well. So it's hard to say who might have And there's a lot of different theories. There's a lot of different books that are out there as far as who might have done it and the

motives motives behind it. And this took place like a bed in breakfast that he like a roadhouse, Yeah, yeah, like he like randomly stopped at. But one of one of the suspects that people throw out there is like the the woman who ran the place, because he had some conflicting stories about she heard the first gun shot. She saw him kind of crawling around or something, right,

and so there's there's suspicion around her. And yeah, she was saying that he was tripping out so bad and making so much racket that didn't even go in there when they heard the gun shot. A grinder stand is what it was called. And you'll see grinder either grinder or just d R I N e R. But the story that she heard him pacing and mumbling to himself and throughout the night, and then she heard the gunshot.

And so it's one of those stories again where um, what what she had to say about the incident was was pretty brief and not all. I mean, it's not like she was taken in and given a full interview or anything like that. She just basically simply stated that he was he was up all night and he was talking and mumbling to himself, and and then she heard

the gunshot. And then it goes from there. Are there his storians you really respect that believe that he was assassinated or most of the folks that, um, like, No, Lewis and clark Well convinced you with suicide. Most most historians will go with the suicide. Um. But there are others who are are adamant that no, no, he just would not have done that. And they're the ones who have really pushed for the exhuming of the body. And a lot of them are just people who want to

be supportive of the Lewis story. Others are people who want to make sure that we're telling that the right side of history, that his reputation as as far as committing suicide versus being assassinated that that gets recorded in the history books. I can't believe he's buried on Park Service land, right? But does that? How does that give the Park Service sort of like domain over the body?

Their their policy overall, from what I gather, is that they just simply do not allow the eximation of any bodies. Now we're talking about archaeological sites earlier. What happens when? But hear me out, Let's let's say I get buried, okay, whatever, my body gets buried on Park Service land, right, and then later a family that's not gonna happen, you know what I'm saying. Later, Like my family is like I want the body back. Is it really the Park Services

place to say no? Well, at this point, there's really no family that is that insistent that they want to have the body exhumed and reburied. Because he didn't have his own kids, right, there's no person with a real, no direct not his parents, not his kids. One part of this calculus is that where he's buried, there's like twenty other people buried as well, right, that they could potentially not even hit Lewis if if they were to go in and his his remainders. I think we're reburied once,

you know. So it's just I can't remember in the situation as far as why they were being exposed, but a reburial, and then of course he had the more notable marker identifying Lewis. But uh, it's a little bit of crapshoot anyway, man, I think they ought to dig it up anyway. Man, I don't really see what the big deal about it is. Yeah, i'd dig it up and have a look. I think we got to get to crash. I'm just saying I don't always see the big deal about It's like, the guy's dead, who cares?

Then there's people say, well, the band's dead, let him rest. Listen, man, he can go back to rest. He's been resting all the time. It's just a brief interruption in his rest. He'd go back and rest some more. I think after they take a look Clark Jefferson, those who really knew him well, they didn't question it. They thought, yeah, they could see him doing something like that, that he would

be that drastic. Jefferson knew his family well and said that his father and I think his mother and like aunts and uncles had depression and like had manic episodes as well. You'd also be to assume he was assassinated ignore the evidence of like you said, he tried to commit suicide like a month earlier at for something and

I don't remember where. And then he'd even written in his journal when he turned thirty one, like a tremendously sad entry that was like, I reflected that I had yet done but little, very little, indeed to further the happiness of the human race or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. And from there he goes on he's like, uh, talks about a lazies band in like uh, just a waste of space. Sounds like a guy was syphilist. He was real excited about he's gonna stay out a

cute little bed and breakfast this weekend. Though Grinders Station specier that that particular journal entry is one that's noted quite often. It's it's it's in his journal, it's his writing and everything, But it was the fact that you know, he at this point, he's thirty one years old. They've they've finally met the people whom they've been looking for for the last four months or whatever. During the summer.

You know, it was really a situation where things should have been more much more upbeat in the stead he say it, Man, I haven't done anything. I'm such a loser, you know. And it's like you get that impression from what he what he writes, and and people see that that's that's again we're stee an Ambrose and undaunted courage keeps talking about this these bouts of melancholy, that he just simply went through these periods where he just really seems depressed, and I think a lot of people just

get aside with that story. Then. Yeah, it was also likely that most of those fellas ended the expedition with malaria, which can cause dementia um which would also like add to the case that this was suicide. I didn't know they're soffering from malaria. Yeah, and I never heard malaria. That's interesting. I think they just assume that most of those folks like got it at some point anyway, right right, I mean the variety of different diseases that that they

suffered from. But the interesting thing is that Clark in the middle part maybe eight somewhere in there, he he made a list of all the members of the expedition that the Permanent Expedition expedition members that headed from from the Mandan village out the Pacific coast, and out of those thirty three, sixteen of them were dead by five or so, he noted include in Psychoga. You know, he said, no Chicago, we had died December eighteen twelve. She probably

would have been in her mid twenties. So again in the controversy as far as how long did she live where she buried, I mean, there's a lot of controversies running that. But a lot of the members of the exhibition. You talked about John Colter turning around going right back. Uh, there were probably ten members of the expedition who did

just that. They had They went went right back. You know, they come back after over two years and four months and they turned around, they go right back, and they're gonna look into a either trading and then later trapping. You know what, why why trade when you can cut out the middle person and then go ahead just trapped yourself. And you know you get into that whole period of time between John Potts and George Drewyer and and John Coulter.

I mean, they were they were probably probably ten of them. I think Potts, the guy that got killed at three Forks, got all got his genitals cut off and everything he was he had to know he's an expedition member. Was John Potts was an expedition member. So they knew each other. Well, oh yeah, a lot of these. In fact, there was one time we got to know him and Coulter had that much history. John Coulter. He goes, he joins the two trappers or traders that are heading up the river.

He's the only member to be dismissed early from the expedition. And then uh, he goes on his ventures. And then he goes back and and uh he meets up with a couple of the other former members of the expedition. He joins them, He turns around, he goes right back

to the to the west. You know, there's a little bit of there's kind of interesting bit of deal making that shows you the leadership style of Lewis and Clark around when Coulter wants to go back with the trappers and traders, and everybody's supportive and and something whoever Lewis or Clark, whoever, says we'll let him go if everyone

promises that, no one else will ask. Right, it's like an interesting deal, right, It's like that we're not home yet, you know, so we can't have everybody just disbanding and and I don't know how many other members would have been interested in leaving, but I always think it's interesting that really, after all that period of time, John Coulter

was ready to go right back. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm I'm kind of interested in because these like the Mandan village again, is is like this social hub, right, lots of trading coming in, and with that trading comes news. Do we know what was said about the expedition? Uh, in other parts of the other world, like folks who didn't come in direct contact with the expedition, like what it was regarded as from a native perspective or a

trapping perspective out there. Um, there was a book I can't remember the author, but it's called Through Indian Eyes. And then even during the Bison tendering, the Losing Clark expedition, the National Park Service really had a had a strong emphasis on on the date of perspective, because you're talking about a situation where Lewis and Clark come along and I don't think they would have been able to survive had it not been for the different Indian nations with

whom they encountered. But at the same time, things are never going to be the same, you know. By the time they're coming back down the Missouri River, they said that they met probably a hundred and fifty different traders and trappers going up the river, and had it not been Lewis and Clark, but it would have been somebody else. It's just a matter of time. They're already I mean when they came to the different villages um that they they were already a lot of Frenchmen who were among

these these populations. There were people coming from a British Canada coming down. So for a large part of it, it's not like they were the first non Indians to visit that area. But when they head west and go across the mountains to the Pacific northwest, that's that's really

the area that nobody else had really ventured in. Yeah, that's I think it's port like Elliott West writes about the historian Elliott West writes about this, like at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, there were Native Americans living on the Great Plains who had been to Europe, met the King of France and came back to the Great Plains. Yeah, right, like well that's the Southern Plains. But it was like it wasn't like a lot had

been going on out there for a long time. And then you get into they get into areas where they were making first contact, but it was like there was deep European history. Absolutely what your was, what your did Cambysi dave Oka go like across the south coast of Texas like two years earlier, and then the I always say the Rondres, but the Veronry brothers and the family who came down, uh seventeen thirties, eight, seventeen forty two, seventeen forty three. We know that they were at least

as far as the Pier Fort Pier area. They left a marker, they're a lead plate with their their names on it in the date. So that's that's back in the seventeen hundreds, a fair amount of time before Lewis and Clark came along. And then, like I said, you across the the man Dan and they have Rene jos Holme who serves as a translator when they were there. Rekora, it's Joseph Gravelyn when they were with the antin Sioux,

it's it's pere Dorian, you know. So like guys that have been there long enough to know the language, know the language. They had families, they had lived among these people for for a number of number of years. Yeah, so yeah, that case, it wasn't all known unknown. I should say, in fact, that they did have journals that they could look at, and anticipation of who they were going to meet and where they might meet them, all

those different aspects of it. But uh, with the man Dan and some of the other tribes, the Mandan chief Shaheka White Coyote, he actually on the way down the river, he actually went with them to St. Louis and eventually went out to the east and met with Jefferson Um Eagle Feather. I mentioned him earlier, the one who was wailing when he couldn't understand why they were punishing John Newman like that. He goes all the way out to Washington, d c. Become sick and and he dies, and that

does not go over well with the Aricara. From that point on, the Aricara become very anti American, and it really affects the fur trade, certainly, because that's one instead of fur traders going up the Missouri River Nowlison, they started looking more at the south Pass me thinking that, yeah, this would be a better way to go, you avoiding both the the Arikara and the and the and the Blackfeet.

Not that all the tribes were pro loose and clark and friendly, but they they did provide a great deal of assistance for him, certainly, And and I really don't think that they would have survived that had not been for the different nations with whom they came in contact. Yanni, what what do you think we never got into oh, just hunting and fishing and eating on the expedition. I got one more question and we'll talk about that because

you just mentioned the black Feet. They only killed one guy, right, They lost one guy from what do you call when you're appendix ruptures? And they killed a guy, right, I mean they killed a black Feet when when Louis Louis didn't lose the expedition members, didn't they kill a black Feet man? Right? There were two that were killed. The K and H when like forever earned the enmity of exactly black Feet nation when they were returning Louis and

three of the other men had broken off. Clark was taken the Yellowstone, the main part of the of the expedition and U when Louis and and these three other men met the group about ten or so blackfoot, UM, they ended up spending the evening with them. The next morning, they awake and appears that they're stealing their horses, loose Loos's horses and his men, and they pointed out that UM, one person stabbed and killed one of the Blackfoot, and

Louis shot and killed another one. And to add insult to injury, when they left, UH, they placed Jefferson Peace medals around them, So there was no question as to who did this. You know that this was these were Americans who did this. And so from that point on, they placed Jefferson peace medals around the around their neck from the dead guys, around the two men whom they

just killed right your ship. So from that point on, I said, the rick Raw and the and the Blackfoot, they were the two groups that really did not support Americans. That's what's crazy about it, is like, is there any chance that the Blackfeet who caught Coulter and Pots in the upper three Forks region, or you know, the Three Forks in Missouri. Is there any chance those dudes knew who those dudes were. I don't know. There was so much they knew that they were members of the Lewis

and Clark expedition from before. It's just that they were Americans, and that if you were making a movie about it, Dude, if I made a movie about it, I'd have it be that whoever I was standing next to the guy that they killed would be like, oh, I remember you boys, fancy seeing you here. And then the other like close

brush to death. With that that that the crew had was Louis got shot by one of his own men in the butt in like a very national lampoon way, by somebody who thought they spotted an elk walking through the ways. Pure Kruzatte. He was one of the more notable members. He was not a military person, but he was known as a as a good boatsman. He was the one who would often play the fiddle whenever they were celebrating the Fourth of July or Christmas or something

like that, so he's noted quite often. But he also was said to have had poor eyesight and so on. This situation when they're coming back, Uh, Cruzatte shoots what he thinks as an elk and it turns out to be Louis And it's just one of those situations where again, he could have gone this whole way and then been shot by one of his own men. But uh, it was a flesh wound in the in the upper thigh, in the buttock area, and uh so he stayed in

the boat for the next several days. When they reached back to the Erica villages, Clark goes in and meets with the new Arica leader, Gray Eyes. There's nothing about Louis. Well, because Louis Is is on the boat, you know, he's not going to get up and walk around. And even even at that, towards the end of August, they point out that Louis finally got up and walked along the shoreline a little bit. Well it was nodal, won't nodal because he had been shot and he was recovering from

that injury. But yeah, I was insuring that he ends up suffering an injury that could have been a very fatal injury, certainly by one of his own men. Yeah, and when it was all said and done, he's been shot three times when it was all said done, yes, twice by himself. Coulter killed the first mule deer. Was the first American to killer mulder Right'm not sure if he was the first one, but oh no, no, no, he killed the first mule deer that was scientifically described.

Of course, he wasn't the first American killing. That's the thing, you know, Louis. He was the one who was responsible for identifying the different animals and giving the detailed description. So uh, and when and when when Lewis wrote, and they were certainly big gaps in his journals, but when

he wrote, he wrote with such such detail. And we talked about this before last last October, but you know, uh, when he described a plant he would draw the leaves of the roots that he would he would go into all the details. When he described an animal, he would go into incredible amount of detail. And so yeah, in that area of well, uh. Paul Russell cut right, who wrote Lewis and Clark Pioneering Naturalists, uh for for outdoors,

people for hunters. So that's probably a book that I would really recommend because he talks about, you know, by today's standards of different counties and what plants, what animals were identified by Lewis and Clark, especially Lewis in that particular area, you know, so it puts things in perspective. But but uh, Lewis goes into so much detail. And what I was gonna say, is Paul Russell cut right.

He said they are between the Nya Barrera River and the Bad River, or that that was probably one of the most significant areas in terms of plants and animals for the native populations. They knew all about these plans and animals, but for science to record them, that was that was something different, you know. So they said a hundred and seventy eight plants, hundred twenty two different species

and subspecies of animals that Lewis identified. That number has changed over the years because people started looking at said,

oh no, actually that was already recorded, you know. But it was a situation where he had so much detail when he talked about I always think of the jack rabbit, for example, because when they killed their first jack rabbit, Uh Lewis had been watching this and and and uh he goes out and he says, such, ok, the jack rabbit about two and a half feet long, six and a half pounds of the ears are about six inches

long three inches wide. And then he goes out and he measures because I've been watching this leaping from place to place, and especially when it was fleeing, and he said that from the point where it took off and where it landed was approximately twenty one ft. I mean, it's those kind of details that used when he talked about different different plants and animals. It's it's like astonishing

how much they got right without prior knowledge. But talk about some of the things that they got wrong, because it's like pretty comical some of the stuff like calling a big horn sheep and ibex or uh. You mentioned to me last October something about they thought they saw a tiger, but we don't know what that was, right right, Um.

You know there was a lot of times where because they I mean, Lewis did go through his tutoring and so he worked with people like Benjamin um Smith Barton and how to do uh, preserving the specimens of plants and animals and and looking at books, and a lot of times I think it was based on the fact that they knew that this type of animal existed, and so when they see something similar out here. They kind of go by the by my name. It wouldn't be

so much getting it wrong. It's just basing what they're seeing on what someone else on something similar to so what they're seeing. What was the tiger story though, Yeah, the tie your Cat. It goes back to the point where I think it was in July of eighteen oh five, and Lewis would do this quite often, where he'd go off by himself and he was out exploring. He uh, he shoots out of Buffalo and uh, he does not reload right away, and all of a sudden he realized

that there's a grizzly bear very close to him. So his action, Um, it was somewhere here in Montana. I'm not sure exact point it would win in July, so I'd have to look at the journals and see exactly where they were at that particular point, but it was it was here in Montana. And uh, he ends up going into a nearby river, getting in deep enough so that if the grizzly bear follows him that he'd have to start paddling, he wouldn't be able to actually attack him.

And Lewis and Clark, they both had called spontoons basically lances. They used him for walking sticks. It was really kind of a symbol of officers. And they had a point on the end. And so he figured if he'd get into this river deep enough that if this grizzly bear did come in after him, he'd able to defend himself, defend himself a little bit better. Well, eventually the grizzly bear takes off and as he's heading back towards the

main camp, uh, three buffalo start to chase him. And then he gets another point where he sees an animal that he describes as a tiger cat. And uh, what he actually meant by a tiger cat. It's hard to say. Uh, I shouldn't say. Most but it's been kind of divided a lot of people in the Northwest, they said, well, tiger cat, they're talking about a lynx or bobcast something like that. Uh. For others they said, no, tiger cat

was a reference to a wolverine. And so there was this wolverine that was looked looked like it was ready to pounce, and then he shot at it and then it went into its burrow. When he went and he looked, and he saw that the marks that were left looked like the tracks of a tiger, you know. So he gets that idea of the tiger cat, but what exactly was that he like the wolverine idea man, And that's now that seems like the most popular story is that

it's probably a probably wolverine. Also, when they were in Montana, I think it was in the Great Falls area. They multiple men talk about this in the journals where they hear some mysterious booms that sound like cannons, but it wouldn't make sense that it would be cannons, And I've heard people speculate that it was like an earthquake or a glacier. So tell us about that story, like what they heard and what people think it might have been. And of course things echo so much, you know, and

that was part of it. I think that the sounds that they were hearing were something that that surprised them, something that that they really were kind of wondering, what

is that, where is it coming from? But even to try to try to narrow down they had such a difficult time even doing so, you know, because again it's just the loud sounds crashes that make that are are made so big horn she I can't tell you how many, and then like, son of a bitch, somebody else up there shooting at so yeah, so I I honestly, I don't have a whole lot more to add to that, because it was such a mystery to them, they really

didn't have a whole lot of explanation. You also talked about how when the tiger cat was spotted, he was off by himself, right, And I think a lot of people who aren't very familiar with the Lewis and Clark story, I don't realize how often these guys were splitting up. I think in your head it's like, Okay, forty five people left, and they were forty five people together the

whole time or whatever. But in reality, they often split up with like, you know, groups of twenty five or or ten and thirty and fifteen or something like that. And a lot of times when they came to different rivers the Mariahs River, for example, which way to go? You know, all the men of the expedition except for Lewis and Clark, said this is the way we need to go. Lewis and Clark said no, we're gonna go

this way. But they took a lot of time going up, they split the group up and some went this direction, so and went that direction. They came back, they reported, and then the captains had to make that final decision, which where we're going to go. But there were there are a lot of times like that. On the way back. When I said that Lewis and three men went to uh explorer more in the northern part of Montana, and h Clark and the rest. They went down the Yellowstone. Uh,

that happened quite often. And a lot of times even when they met the Shoshone. He was Lewis and that that front party and Clark and the rest coming up behind. And a lot of times they would just simply leave a note on a on a tree limb, you know, and you think, well, how in the world has somebody catch that? Oh, they left us to know, you know, but they did. It was just remarkable that they could go in so many different directions and yet they would

still meet up. You know. It's just it's just it's fascinated that they could do so and do it over and over and over again. I mentioned George Shannon, he was the youngster of the group. Uh. He was the one who's often mentioned a lot in Lewis and Clark circles for being lost the most often. Um, there was one situation early in the expedition, uh back in August and September, and he went out hunting and he thought that the expedition had passed him. So he's pushing forward,

trying to catch up to the expedition. For sixteen days he's pushing forward, he runs out of ammunition, he shoots a stick and kills a rabbit. He eats some some berries along the way, and after sixteen days he's he's starving, he's tired. He sits down, and here comes the exhibedition expedition behind him. The whole time they were trying to catch up to him, and he kept thinking that he had to catch up to them. So I always tell you, know, the parents, when you tell your children you get lost,

stay in one place, don't wander around. Well, that's exactly what George Shannon was doing. He was wandering. He was trying to catch up to AH to the expedition. They were actually behind him. We said he shot a stick. I mean he crammed a stick down the muzzle right, WHOA shout it out. That's that's all he had I mean he was the last resort, so sixteen days he was he was lost. To me, being lost just means you're finding stuff, you know. I mean, that's that's the

good part about being lost. You can discover all sorts of stuff. He probably just didn't get credit because he was falling out of military whatever structure there, you know. And and and people often again jokingly say that, you know, he died in the land of plenty because you have all this wildlife, you have all this surround you, but you can't kill anything, you know, So for sixteen days you're eating a few berries here and there, in a in a rabbit. That was it. That's all you come

up with. Talk about how the whole time Louis and Clarker doing this expedition, I think they don't even realize that they're also being hunted by like some Spanish mercenaries. How close did the Spanish mercenaries like come to getting them or not come close to finding them? Um, not very close. The Spaniard you're talking about as a man by the name of Pedro Val and he was commissioned

by the Spanish. The Spanish had a lot of resentment when the French sold the Louisiana territory to the United States. And it was a situation that once Lewis and Clark, I mean, you can say, well, yeah, but the United States bought Louisiana territory, that's only goes up to the Continental Divine. Uh, anything west of the Rockies, that's that's claimed by again the Spanish, by the British, by the Russians, and so once they get beyond that area, they're kind

of fair game, if we will. And so the Spanish sent out pedro Vial at least three times, and there were probably four different expeditions by the Spanish themselves to try to intercept Lewis and Clark. Each time they sent them out, they were they were way off. They were hoping to have a gunfight with them. They were hoping

to intercept them, take their records. Uh certainly probably not just imprisoned them, but probably yeah, do do away with them, because they saw them as a threat to the Spanish territory. How many guys that they have with them, it varied um that there were some situations where they had as many as fifty or sixty men with so they're more down you know, when Zebulin Pike. He was also in a situation similar to Lewis and Clark. Course he's going

to the southwest when they're going to the northwest. And Pike was was captured by the Spanish, and so whether you know, eventually they released him. But would they have done the same thing with Clark maybe a bigger question. Would Lewis and Clark allowed themselves to be caught or would they put up a fight to the end. And I think they probably would have put up a fight

to the end. Jed Smith got caught and detained by the Spanish when you crossed the Mohabbean to California right now, So that I mean the Spanish were very concerned about what was going on. Did Lewis and Clark know that they were being hunted? No? No, Now, they had no idea because they were so far removed from what the Spanish were doing that there was no communication, no indication that, oh, yeah, the Spanish are are trying to intercept you or anything

like that. No, And and you're you're looking at for you know, two years and four months plus that they're off the face of the earth. Nobody knows where they are, what they're doing. If they're still alive, anything like that. And so it's not until they start coming back that they start running into a lot of these people who are heading out west for the trade and for the trapping, and uh then of course people realize, oh, they're still here, they're still alive. They made it. And even at that

you talk about Lewis and his depression. When he gets back, he starts writing a letter to Jefferson, and he goes on to say that we accomplished all these great things, we identified this and that and uh. But then he goes on and say, however, we we failed to find a good water route to the Pacific northwest, which was really their big objective to explore the waters of the Missouri River across the continent and and try to use that for trade purposes. And it just didn't exist, you know.

Uh So in that case, all these great things, but sorry, we we failed. We we missed the number one objective

that you had for us. When I read Undaunted Courage, I was I was very frustrated, as an armchair quarterback two hundred years later about how it seemed every interaction with a tribe that went poorly could have been diffused by giving them what they wanted, which was usually like ammo or guns, and so was was it like a strategic choice that we don't they could be our enemy, so we don't want to give them animal guns or were they like really limited supplies that that stuff was

still valuable, Like why weren't they more willing to part with those things instead of always trying to negotiate with like beads and medals that the tribes didn't care about. I think I think it depended out on the tribe because they had when they met with the Yankton Sue August thirties and thirty one, things went really well. They were very agreeable to trading with American traders in the future.

But there was a Yankton sioue elder by the name of half Man, and he said, now, the next group you meet, the Titon or the tita One Siue, their their ears will not be as open as ours. They're not gonna be as receptive. So and of course they knew they heard about the reputational Dakota even even back east, you know, even before all this began. And when they're in St. Louis, certainly there's more people saying, oh, you know,

watch out for the for the Tita one. And so they they get there and those four days September, up and down. It's a roller coaster ride. Uh. They talked about how they they invited the three UH leaders Black Buffalo, Buffalo, Medicine, and the one who was referred to as a partisan out to the keel boat offered them alcohol, and that when they went to return them to the shoreline that the one who was referred to as a partisan, he started to feign drunkenness and he kind of brushed up

against Clark. It gets to the point where Clark draws his sword and the men on on board the boats they start getting their their weapons ready. The Lakota they start getting their bow and arrows ready, and there's a very tense moment that if anybody would have fired a shot on either side, it probably would have been the end of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Fortunately, Black Buffalo he was the one who stepped in and calmed things down.

And and but when they stayed on an island that night, they called it bad humored Island because it was not a good day. The next day they talked about feasting. They talked about how Lewis and Clark were individually carried in on buffalo robes, that there was a night of dancing and you know, pletely different scenario than the day before.

But it goes back and forth like that. And then then they find out that, uh, through a couple of the menu Purezat whom I had mentioned before, the person who accidentally shot Louis, he was a French and Omaha background. There was another person my name of Francois la Beche who was also French and Omaha. And because of the Omaha side of their family, they knew a little bit about the the Lakota language. And from what they could gather that they thought that they're not gonna let us leave.

They're gonna they're gonna prevent us from going up the Missouri River. So eventually, on that that fourth day, when they're ready to take off again, you have the partisans say, come on, just give me some more tobacco, you know, just give us some more gifts. We know you have

a whole boatload of all these things. But it's one of those things that one they didn't want to be bullied into doing something like that, and too they certainly did not want to give them any any weapons that they could use because they just had that reputation when they meet with the arec Ra You know that that was quite well with the man dance. You know that they spent the whole winter working with the man dance. Uh. When they crossed the the Lolo past took much longer

than they anticipated. But when they met with the Nez Purse, they were so hungry that they gorged themselves on on dried fish and camus roots, and they became very ill. I mean they're lying around, moaning and groaning. They're completely incapacitated. And the Nez Purse thought about what it would be so easy to go around and just kill all these guys and take their weapons. They'd be the most powerful

nation and in that area. And there was a Nez person woman the name of Watt Kueis, who, similar to Scakawee, she had been taken by the black Feet, ended up being sold up in Canada, living with with white men, and then eventually returned to her people. And she said that when she lived with the with the white men that they treated her very well. And so she was the one who acted on behalf of the Lewis and Clark exhibitions that don't do them any harm. You know

that they're they're not bad people. But again, it would have been one of the situations where it could have gone either way. So it really depended on what she could have been saying, they're obviously gonna die out here anywhere. Yeah, it's it's one of the things where so so many things are just so pivotal, like it could have gone one way or the or the other. So yeah, it's

fascinating to think about. Man, if they had all got dusted off, like everything, you know, you get into like this like the butterfly and what's that thing called the butterfly effects? So who knows, but like it probably would have been inevitable, Like what happened would have been inevitable. If they had all gotten killed, right manifest destiny, you probably would have marched on man. Oh yeah, absolutely. And that's like saying, you know, well, can you imagine if

Coleumbus and not discovered the America as well? It would have been somebody else, And and had it not been Lewis and Clark, it would have been somebody else. But you know, how much of a role did they play in history? Like I said, it's not just a story, it's it's a bunch of stories. You have all these

different individuals who involved in different different tribal nations. You have all the accomplishments that they had with with the plant life and animal life and geography and geology and and just just all the things that they did over that period of time. And to think that only one person died, you know that that's the fascinating part. And they always say that Charlie Fluke, Charles Floyd, if he could have been in Philadelphia and he would have died

of a pennicitis, you know. So the fact that he was out here in the wilderness, well that was really not a not a big point, pivotal point, because it was it was something that was not treatable back then. Oh one last thing, I wish I'd ask you this earlier. They had different taste and fish than we have now. Like they liked the stuff now, Like did they like uh, gold night, gold eyes, moon eyes a lot. Well, they called them salmon. I think they called him like prairie

salmon says. It's just another like funny spot to to think of um gold eye now being a salmon. But they liked them, and that's not regarded as like a bony ass trash fish, right, and I was like their favorite fish. They're tried to eat one. Oh yeah, smoke the great because you could peel the meat off the bones and there were very good smoke fish. Cutthroats were named after Clark, right, yeah, yeah, how you had like Lewis's woodpecker, Clark's I'm trying to think about a bird

named after him? Is the Clark's not hatch that Clark? Yes? And then the cutthroat trout it's not different name, yeah, is nut cracker. I feel like most people that are interested in Lewis and Clark pick up undaunted courage. But if you were going to suggest another book or another author,

what would that be. Depends on your interests In my case, because a lot of my researches with the Northern Plains, and so I always like looking at James Ronda's Lewis and Clark among the Ins because it deals with each of the different tribal groups that they came in contact with. Overall, they would meet with nearly fifty different nations. Uh. A lot of people point out that, oh, Yeah, but they learned about a lot more, you know, so some people say as many as one hundred that they were became

knowledgeable about. And James rond It does a really good job approaching it from that perspective. Uh, as far as the connection between Lewis and Clark and the different groups with whom they came in contact. So if that's your interests, if you're looking at at wildlife, there's several that are out there. But I mentioned that what that I like, not very politically correct by today's standards, but uh, Paul

Russell Cut rights Lewis and Clark pioneering naturalists. I like that one because it does break it down what they were seeing in terms of plant life and animal life throughout the expedition. And of course Gary Moulton's thirteen volumes of the Lewis and Clark Journals with all the notations.

That's that's always uh something that you have to look at, I guess, just because it doesn't have the maps that include, you know, where they were and how how things have changed, like the Missouri River, how the course has changed so much. But he puts it into perspective again as far as where was where, where did this actually take place, you know,

so that that's important. Undaunted courage. Uh. I heard Steven Ambrose speaks several times before he passed away, and and he always talked about how when he first went to his publisher and said, well, I'd like to do something on Lewis and Clark. This is back in and so people were beginning to think of the bicentennial coming up in two thousand four, two thousand and six, and his publisher said, well, you know, very reluctantly, said well how

about it. We start with five thousand copies and uh, Ambrose said, five hundred thousand copies I hope before gets sold than that. By two thousand one, three million copies have been sold. Uh. It still is one that that people know Stephen Ambrose and an undaunted courage. Um. It does have its critics as well, because he makes a lot of assumptions. You know. It's like, well, in the case of the of the Titouan situation, he talks about it spends a whole page talking about, well, what if

somebody would have fired a shot? You know, uh, they probably would have you know, focused on on Lewis and Clark first, and you know, I went out through this whole scenario, and then then the others would have drifted back down the river to escape, and it didn't happen, you know, Black Buffalo intervened and things calmed down and they made it through that that whole situation. But he says, what if you know, what if he stepped he stepped

out of his role as a historian, right right. And then then there's a lot of other times too where he'll he'll spend you know, half a page, three fourth of page, and he'll say, well, according to James Ronda. Well, then he'll quote James Ronda for a half a page or three fourths of page, and then people start thinking, maybe I should just read James Ronda, you know, because that's what, you know, what made him, I think a prolific writer is that he used other people's works extensively.

And he did get into a little trouble and with that and plagiarism issues towards the very end. But I think it's just the fact that, you know, he did rely on a lot of sources, and he was putting out books after books after books, and he's on top. People want to knock him down, yeah, and other people are doing a lot of the research for him, and

he's putting it all together. But when you read Steven Ambrose is undone and courage, I mean, having listened to the person speak in person, or if you watch him in some documentary, you can just hear his voice when you're reading his work. You know that, Well, it just sounds like Steven Ambrose, you can just hear it so well. Uh. I've read references here and there that you know, it's acknowledged that no one has gotten the movie right, you

know what I mean. And it's like it's like this thing you just can't it's too big to get a grip on. But it haunts various filmmakers, and I wonder what, like you know, like SE's like like c G I would help, right, it would be like an epic thing. I just wonder if someone's ever gonna be able to really take it on. I know that HBO was working on it for a long time. They were going to do a kind of a mini series, and that that fell by the wayside. I mean that was that was

probably it's fifteen years ago. You're thinking c G I for the Tiger Cat, but just making the Yeah, I mean just but think about you gotta deal with your dealing with upstream and you're dealing with like character whatever, what number forty eight characters encountering fifty groups, like fifty indigenous groups. I mean it's huge and like it haunts people that you could ever really do good for. I'd end with that, like you know, big budget, big budget,

multi season. See, the thing is that you're always gonna have the the drama part that's added to make it a good movie, you know. And and there has been a couple of love story about York and oh uh and and there is that movie that came out back in the nineteen fifties. I think it was h Donna Reid played the part of of of Chicago wea Zaca Juwia back then. Uh. He had Fred McMurray from My

Three Sons. He he was playing Lewis. Charlton Heston played Clark. Uh. There's there's a knife fight where Clark and Toussaint Charboneau or going around the campfire fighting over Chicago wea know, which was not not the case or anything like that. But and then there's one part where they can help them. They're going over the portage of the great falls and and you know they're they're pulling this keel boat with them,

which the keel boat had gone down ruver. There's no way you're gonna pull that great, big boat over the mountains or anything like that. But it's in there, and it's just ridiculous. Um. There's also one called I can't think of the case right now, but Matthew Perry and h oh um, Chris Farley and and that's where you see the Spanish chasing them, you know, Paydrovale, Well Farley and and Matthew Perry there there there leading expedition at the same time of Lewis and Clark, so kind of

racing Lewis and Clark. You know, I get it. It makes for a funny movie and everything, but there's a lot of yeah, right, uh, but anytime you have a situation like this, uh, you're you're gonna have something thrown in there for special effects. In South Dakota, quite honestly, we all laugh at at the Revenant the movie. Okay, thing, dude, it was the greatest crime, greatest crime against America that happens in August up in the northwestern part of South Dakota.

And you see the mountains that okay, we don't have mountains. There should be like a Nuremberg trial for there was. There was a lot of things in there that's thought, no, no, no, yeah, shooting that ship in British Columbia, give me up, right. But man, if if you like hours of grunting, that's a huge attack grunting and crawl, and I think that's the Tappico would happen if they did something with Lewis and Clark. There'd be so many things added to it,

just live in up So yeah, it would be bad. Man. I would like one of the many things I want to do when I retire is take on Boone in film. You know, I would be great to write, to write a script that would be uh man. I would never want to take this on because it's like, you know what I mean, Like Boone spent a lot of time with a couple other people, and then, as I mentioned at the very beginning, a lot of the things that

I mentioned today, they're very controversial. I mean they're gonna be people cringe at some of the things I said, and they were people say yeah, yeah, that's tell me. The most controversial thing you said Chicago were sasakais Lewis murder or suicide, those issues, the role of Chicago wea, um Lewis paternity, you know, did he actually father a child? I mean, those are all those people that really emotionally care about those answers. Yes, Yes, they emotionally care. Yes.

They get tied into so much. And when I give talks as a teacher, a lot of times I'll point out, well, you know, there are people who believe this, and there are people who believe that. And I don't always say, well, I think that this is what happened to Lewis, or I think that this is you know, what happened. I have my my personal leanings. But at the same time I realized that there are people who are very adamant one way or the other. Yeah, like I said, to

go to Lewis and Clark conference. Nice thing is that they're all experts. The bad thing is they're all experts and they never agree. Do you got a lot of those conferences? UM I used to. In the last few years with COVID and everything, I haven't attended anything, but um I still do a lot. With Lewis and Clark. I've worked with this family whose oral tradition is that uh lewis father to a child Joseph to spent Lewis. So I've been working with them. I actually submitted an

article uh for pure review. It was turned down because he said, no, it's too controversial. They they they didn't want to go into that. And all this published it on our website. All this family wants to know is you know what is it? Is it true or not? The recalled um the it was Merrywether Lewis uh Winona and the story of Joseph de smitt Lewis. So Lewis being the father, Wona being the mother, and Joseph de

smitt Lewis being the child. Have you put it out anywhere? No, just to wait and try to get into academic journey. I might, I might, man, I'll have to make some revisions with it, but I want just tease it with us. And then in fact, even before I came out here, I checked with the person with in the family and I said, I just want to know is there any new advances or anything like that, And he said no, he said, we're we're just trying to find somebody with

the Lewis connection. And and I said there's no known Lewis descendants, so it would have to be some other type of relation. But with the DNA, if they could just do the d NA work, they gotta just go dig that bottle. Man, Come, someone needs just going there and do like an act of civil obedience, do little night breath. This fella from Misery seventy years old, card and dispenser. He's got nothing to lose. Yeah, I'd be like, I want you get that show and get that trowel

in your bucket, in your backpack, get us some skulls. Man. I like them better now, I like them better. No, it's fascinating, man, it's good stuff. It's a good time in history. I would like to be with those guys. I would have been the guy that got lost or eaten by a grizzly bear. I would not have made it. I'm telling you, I have so much anxiety when I'm out on big trips of like, God, this is so awesome right now, but I know tomorrow or tonight I'm

gonna bump into another person. And just being in that zone of like I haven't seen anybody for a month and we're still on the river. All right, Come on, I'd give a lot for that. I gotta hit you with one more thing that we're gonna quit. Sure. UM. I'm friends with the historian Dan Flores, you know him. He's not a Loosing Clark guy. But he had a

graduate student who did this work on UM. I believe it was graduate to do this work on the places where they encountered most wildlife, particularly like the big congregations of of Buffalo, were contested areas like inter like contested by various tribes and where these sort of like no man's lands. Um. And he was kind of like overlying territories with places where they'd be like, Holy ship, there's

a lot of buffalo around here. It would turn out that those weren't places where large groups of people would be safe and comfortable to camp and hunt. And there was like sort of like back country, you know, sort of like like the equivalent of like back country spots. The people were getting to them right in because of warfare. You've learned that idea. Well, you know, for the Cheyenne and the Lakota, they they had their rivalry, you know, and so and both of them had very similar lifestyles

in terms of their culture. A lot of it depending on on the bis and certainly, but uh, both of them also traded with the Erica. Now is one of those things where the Arika and the Lakota, I mean, I get along very well most of the year, but then certain times the year they would trade and the Lakota would bring in buffalo meat and uh the Ricara would have corn and beans and squash and they would do that trade. Cheyenne and the Rica, they were much

more friendly towards one another. But there's that animasi exists between the the Cheyenne and the Lakota as far as territory, so that might be something along with what you're looking as far as the Cheyenne area and then the Lakota area. How much of it overlapped, How much did it affect the numbers that were out there in terms of elk

and bison. You know, it's always kind of amazing when when people start thinking of of South Dakota and they started talking about in places like Elk Point where they recorded seeing hundreds and hundreds of elk, because you think of that maybe in the Black Hills, but not down the southeastern part of South Dakota, where when you start thinking of the massive herds of bison, and at one point Louis said something to the fact that from his vantage point you could see maybe three thousand head of

bison or points where they'd be crossing over the river and they just have to wait because there's so many of them, and they couldn't do anything about it until they were all done. Those things are are always interesting because people don't see that, you know. Now they see flat farm land and and and uh more of the lakes along the Missouri River. Um. But it's changed so much.

I heard a biologist speak several years ago and the question of grizzly bears in South Dakota, how could that possibly Well, there's a well known photo of Lieutenant Colonel George Arnold back in the seventy four and then of course you have the story a few glass being attacked in eight uh and surviving that grizzly bear attack. But the thing is that's so different is that back then, Yeah, there were a lot of grizzlies that were out on

the plains because that's where the food was. That's where you had thousands and thousands of bis, and that's where you had the elk. And it's only when those started getting killed off that you start seeing a change as far as thinking of grizzlies, you think of more of the more of the mountainous areas. Perhaps, So there's been a lot of changes that have taken place over a period time that affected a lot of different groups. And I said, for Lewis and Clark, there's no way they

would have survived. I don't think that they would have survived without the assistance of the of the native populations. But at the same time, it really marks the beginning of the end for native cultures. Things will never ever be the same after Lewis and Clark. Yeah, well it's for coming on man. Thank you for having me satisfied, Spencer, very satisfied. And and I want to thank Brad and thank you other guys in the room because that was a real ball hog this podcast because I wanted to

bug him about all the questions I've had. I'm turning it up. We got her, We got her done. Tommy, you feel prime for the trivia showdown. I didn't call him to take part. I came to take over. There you going, you might need to make up a little Tommy token. Maybe he's two wins. And then we'll first all right, Brad, thanks man, you can stick around of the trivia. I mean, I think you might be a formidable player, because here's the other. You and Spencer got

the whole South Dakota thing going. And then Spencer throws a bone to Gas. I don't know if he's gonna throw a bone to Tommy. Well, I bet he's gonna throw a bone to you. I'll tell you, but I'll tell you narthing to keep track of their day. Spencer was golfing with which is like the stupidest thing the world too. I got two problems with it. We're golfing on passes that you gave us. Oh that you still have those? Not anymore. Don't tell why I got him in a secret now listen, because I don't want to

give away my situation where that's coming. So, but let me tell you the problem I have. I have a problem where I feel like you guys are sharing information. We're in coots, and it makes it that if Yanni beats me, then I have to have the shame of being beat by golfer, which is which is you'll never live it down. You'll never live it. Do you guys run through a bunch of beers drinking Golfield or playing Golfield.

Not Yanni, did you guys? Corey and I were on team Correy and I were on Team straight Edge, and Spencer and Ghen were on Team Tallboy and I guess who won Straight Edge? Really clear and focused. Yeah, but we had way more beers in Nicotine than you guys, so we win. Stay tun of Tribune