Riverboats used by Lewis and Clark

Rivers were the highways of frontier America, and boats were the most efficient way to transport people and freight across a rugged, roadless landscape. It was much easier to float bulky, heavy items than to drag them laboriously through forests and over mountains, and in newly settled territory the first towns generally grew up at strategic points on navigable waterways.

The diversity of American rivers - some broad and deep, others shallow and meandering - combined with the differing needs of freight haulers, trappers, traders, hunters and settlers to spawn a wide variety of watercraft. The array of shapes, sizes and methods of propulsion that characterized river boats in the 1700s and 1800s is echoed today by the range of vehicles used to transport people and goods on city streets, country roads and interstate highways, from subcompact automobiles to mammoth tractor-trailer rigs.

The Corps of Discovery relied principally on four types of boats during its long journey, which took it up the Missouri River and its tributaries, then down the western side of the Continental Divide into the Columbia River and on to the sea. The boats the explorers used were typical watercraft of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Keelboat

Fifty-five feet long, eight feet wide and capable of carrying about 12 tons, the keelboat was the workhorse of the expedition. The replica, moored on a lake at Lewis and Clark State Park near Onawa, Iowa, is base don drawings in William Clark's field notes.

The keelboat - the 18-wheeler of its day - was the largest of the expedition's vessels. Meriwether Lewis ordered the expedition's 55-foot keelboat from a builder in Pittsburgh, where most keelboats were constructed at the time. (The boatwright was a drunk, and Lewis engaged in a running argument with him in the summer of 1803 over when he would complete the much-delayed construction.) Keelboats were up 70 feet long and 18 feet wide, with a flat bottom and a short keel running the length of the hull. Even when fully loaded, they drew only two to three feet of water.

Downstream travel in these lumbering barges was relatively easy. Moving upstream against the current, however, was often extremely difficult. Keelboats could be rowed, paddled, poled or sailed, if winds were favorable, but crews often had to resort to "cordelling." A stout rope (or "cordelle") up to 1,000 feet long was fastened to the mast and run through a bridle at the bow. Men walking on shore or in the water used the rope to drag the boat against the current.

To "pole" the boat upstream, several men lined up on each side of the boat, on special cleated walkways constructed for that purpose. Each would have a long, stout pole. Starting at the bow, they would jam the poles into the river bottom and walk toward the stern, keeping the head of the pole firmly braced against their shoulders. When they could go no farther, they would hurry back to the bow and repeat the process, slowly pushing the boat upstream. This procedure was effective only if the water was not too deep for the poles to reach bottom.

The Corps of Discovery took its keelboat down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, up the Mississippi to the Missouri, and then up the Missouri River as far as the Mandan Indian villages near today's Washburn, N.D. After spending the winter there, the keelboat - which was too cumbersome to navigate the upper Missouri River - was sent back downstream to St. Louis in the spring of 1805 with a small crew, carrying natural-history specimens, maps and expedition journals intended for President Jefferson.

Pirogues

Boatright Butch Bouvier adjusts rigging on the white pirogue, a hand-built replica of one of three watercraft that carried the Lewis and Clark Expedition up the Missouri River, the gateway to the West in the 19th century.

Unlike the keelboat, a drawing of which survives in William Clark's field notes, there is no precise written description of the two smaller boats the commanders obtained to help ferry men and supplies on the first part of the journey. The commanders referred to these smaller boats as pirogues. Boatwright Butch Bouvier, who constructed replicas of the expedition watercraft now on display at Lewis and Clark State Park near Onawa, Iowa, based his design on the Mackinaw boats that were in common use at the time on the Ohio, Mississippi and lower Missouri rivers. Originally used on eastern rivers and lakes, the Mackinaw design had proved quite suitable for western rivers.

Cheaply made of boards or planks, they were smaller than keelboats. Mackinaw boats typically would be sent only on downstream journeys, and were broken apart for their lumber when they reached their destinations. Like the keelboat, they could be rowed, paddled, poled or sailed. Although the precise dimensions are not known, the Corps of Discovery's pirogues - one painted red and the other white - were probably about 40 feet long; one was designed to be rowed by eight men and the other by six. They had flat bottoms and low sides, and could carry several tons of cargo.

The expedition stashed the red pirogue in a stand of cottonwoods on an island near the junction of the Missouri and Marias rivers, near today's Fort Benton, Mont. The party left the white pirogue behind when it reached the Great Falls of the Missouri. When they returned the following spring, the explorers found that only the white pirogue had survived in good enough shape to make the return voyage to St. Louis.

Dugout canoes

A replica of one of the expedition's dugout canoes is displayed at Canoe Camp in Nez Perce National Historical Park. Following their crossing of the Bitterroot Mountains on foot and horseback, the explorers built five canoes from cottonwood trunks for their downstream journey to the Columbia River.

To replace the pirogues, the men constructed dugout canoes from large cottonwood trunks, using these to make their way upstream until the ever-smaller tributaries became too shallow to float even these lightweight craft. Shifting to horses and backpacks, they traveled by land across the Rocky Mountains and made new dugout canoes when they reached the Clearwater River, a navigable tributary in the Columbia River watershed.

Dugouts were common watercraft on western rivers, built by whites and Indians alike. Once a suitable tree had been found - one that would yield a straight segment of trunk 15 to 20 feet long - it was felled and trimmed. The exterior was straightened and smoothed with an ax. The top of the rounded log was then sliced off to form the canoe's flat upper surface, and the interior of the log was hollowed out using an adz. (In the Pacific Northwest, the men learned to hasten this process by dumping burning coals into the interior and letting fire do most of the work.) The result was a thin shell two or three inches thick at the bottom and one inch thick at the rim. To support the sides, timber was left in place at several points to form solid partitions. Four men could build a good-sized canoe in about four days.

Occasionally, if large enough trees were not available, voyagers would build a pair of smaller dugouts and lash them together catamaran-style, with a platform between the twin hulls, forming a pontoon boat that was more stable and could carry more cargo than small, individual canoes. William Clark and his party employed this strategy during their exploration of the Yellowstone River on the way home from the Pacific coast.

Bullboats

On the Great Plains, where trees were often scarce or too small and twisted to yield suitable logs, natives constructed tub-shaped boats using buffalo hides stretched over a hemispherical frame of willow, cottonwood or ash branches. Members of the Corps of Discovery encountered these small boats among the Mandan and other tribes of the upper Missouri River, whose women generally used them to transport meat downstream to the village after a buffalo hunt.

White trappers and traders later learned to make much larger versions using the tough hides of bull buffalo, which were stitched together and the seams sealed with pitch or pine tar. The hide covering was moistened before being lashed to the frame; when it dried, it shrank and became as tight as a drum head.

Several members of the Corps of Discovery, lagging behind Clark during the Yellowstone exploration because they were in charge of the group's horses, built small bullboats and floated downstream to rejoin their commander after Indians stole the herd.

Where to see them

There are at least two sets of operational replicas of the expedition's keelboat and pirogues available to visit along the explorer's route. One set, constructed in Butch Bouvier's boatwright shop, is on Blue Lake at Lewis and Clark State Park, west of Onawa, Iowa. More information is available at http://www.keelboat.com/. The second set is operated by the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, Mo., a historical re-enactment group. Unlike those at Lewis and Clark State Park, the boats of the Discovery Expedition are motorized and travel up and down the Missouri River. Ken Burns filmed this group and its keelboat replica for his 1997 public television documentary on Lewis and Clark, although the boat was later destroyed when fire consumed the warehouse where it was stored. The group has built a replacement, however, which it will take on river tours during the expedition bicentennial. More information is at http://lewisandclark.net/

Reproductions of the expedition's dugout canoes are located at several places along the trail, including the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, N.D.; the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Mont.; the Canoe Camp in Nez Perce National Historical Park, near Orofino, Idaho; and at Fort Clatsop National Memorial near Astoria, Ore. Bullboat replicas can be found at several museums along the trail, including the Interpretive Center in Great Falls.