Fort Mandan

The Corps of Discovery arrived in this area around the third week of October 1804 where they found the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.  They had been having several snow falls during their travels and there would be ice on the oars when they pulled them from the water.  The Mandans were a peaceful tribe that grew lots of corn and beans that they used for trade with other hunter tribes.  Lewis and Clark decided that this would be a good place to winter so they built a fort across the river from the Mandan village.  During the winter their blacksmith would make tomahawks and knives that he traded to the Indians for corn and beans for the crew.  The Discovery crew also had a mechanical corn grinder that amazed the Indians.

There was a French Canadian squawman living with the Hidatsas with three squaw wives.  Early in November he approached Lewis and Clark and proposed that he go with them when they continued their trek as an interpreter as he could speak several Indian languages.  They agreed to hire him but were most interested in one of his young squaws as she was a Shoshone named Sacagawea.  From talking with other tribes along the way they understood that the Shoshone lived in the mountain range and owned many horses that they hoped to use to cross the divide and Sacagawea might be of great value in the purchase of horses.  Sacagawea was in the late stage of pregnancy so she and the interpreter moved into the captains cabin at the fort to make her more comfortable.  Early February she gave birth to a boy they named Jean Baptiste.  She had much trouble in labor and was given a drink of water that had a rattlesnake rattle crumbled into it which seemed to help ease the birthing.

She had been kidnapped by a Hidatsa warrior near the area of Three Forks, MT and brought back and sold to the French Canadian.  One story is that she was won by him in a gambling game at the age of 13.  The winter of 1804 when she joined the crew she was 16.

This lake we are now camped by is named Lake Sakakawea which is another Indian pronunciation of her name.

 below the dam our campsite is under the arrow

 above the dam