Falls Left Lewis In Awe

By John Krist,
Senior reporter

Meriwether Lewis proclaimed the Great Falls of the Missouri "the grandest sight I ever beheld." Seen here in an 1867 photograph, the falls delayed the Corps of Discovery nearly a month as the men were forced to haul boats and baggage 18 miles around a series of spectacular cascades.

The irregular and somewhat projecting rocks below receives the water in it's passage down and brakes it into a perfect white foam which assumes a thousand forms in a moment sometimes flying up on jets of sparkling foam to the hight of fifteen or twenty feet -- from the reflection of the sun on the sprey or mist which arrises from these falls is a beautiful rainbow produced which adds not a little to this majestically grand senery.
Capt. Meriwether Lewis,
Co-commander, Corps of Discovery
June 13, 1805

GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- The first man to attempt a written description of the waterfalls that gave this city its name despaired of his ability to capture the scene in words.

Unleashing an avalanche of adverbs and adjectives, he wrote of "perfect white foam," "sparkling foam," "beaten and foaming water" and, in a final burst of giddy redundancy, "whitest beaten froth." He went on for page after page, approaching his subject from different angles like an inexperienced driver trying repeatedly to back a trailer into a driveway and failing each time. In frustration, he all but threw his quill into the river, declaring himself "much disgusted" with his "imperfect discription" of the scene.

Meriwether Lewis had good reason to be overawed. Before him, the entire flow of the Missouri River -- a big river even this close to its headwaters, reaching nearly a thousand feet from bank to bank -- plunged over a bedrock precipice nearly 90 feet high. And this was but one of five falls in the short span of nine miles, the river tumbling down a lithic staircase with such force that the spray rose like smoke from a prairie fire and could be seen more than five miles away. It was, Lewis wrote, "the grandest sight I ever beheld."

Many of the scenic wonders that impressed Lewis and his companions nearly 200 years ago during their pioneering exploration of the West still offer visitors a chance to be amazed and gratified. The Great Falls of the Missouri, however, are not among them.

Where Lewis saw "majeestically grand senery," later generations saw kilowatts. Concrete dams erected directly atop the waterfalls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries either drowned the cascades or diverted most of the river's flow around them through penstocks and generator turbines.

The waterfalls that so amazed Lewis and Clark nearly 200 years ago offer but a hint of their former grandeur today. During times of high electricity demand, hydroelectric dams built atop the falls in the late 1800s and early 1900s divert most of the river's flow through generator turbines.

When low river flow combines with high demand for electricity -- as it did last summer during my visit, when California's power shortage coincided with the worst drought to strike Montana in more than a century -- the Great Falls simply cease to exist. Every drop of water is diverted into the powerhouse and returned to the river channel below the falls. Sparkling foam is replaced by a boulder garden. Their stony bones remain, but the falls are stripped of their beauty; they are like plucked peacocks, skinned ermines, a grove of sequoias turned into fence posts.

The falls are not all that has changed in the Great Falls area in the past 200 years. Just south of town lies a landmark called White Bear Islands. The islands took their name from the grizzlies (which Lewis and other 19th century explorers often called "white bears" to distinguish them from smaller and more common black bears) that once abounded in the area. Today, however, there are no white bears within 100 miles of White Bear Islands. Like the Great Falls, these intimidating predators were removed from the surrounding landscape -- indeed, from most of the American West -- by the settlers who followed in the footsteps of Lewis, William Clark and their Corps of Discovery. (See accompanying story.)

Many things have changed along the Lewis and Clark trail in the past two centuries, and often these changes are not immediately apparent. An observer does not automatically perceive the absence of something; it requires imagination to see what is no longer there and to rue the difference -- to feel keenly the absence of bison in the presence of cattle, to miss grama grass and bluestem when driving through mile after a mile of wheat.

But at each of the Great Falls cascades, both the natural feature itself and overwhelming physical evidence of its elimination are simultaneously on display. There is the river. There are the great shelves and walls of adamant stone. And there is the gray dam perched like a vulture over the skeletonized carcass of the dead waterfall.

Of all the places I visited last year during my three-month journey along the Lewis and Clark trail, Great Falls provided one of the most brutal and clear examples of how the West has changed -- and continues to change -- since the Corps of Discovery helped knit the region into the national fabric.

The Missouri River I had been following from St. Louis had, of course, been changed by dams and other structures along most of its length, but those changes were not so vivid: A river that flows through an artificially narrowed channel bounded by levees still looks like a river, and even where dams have backed up long, sinuous lakes, water still occupies the river's course. There is something uniquely unnerving, however, about a river bed that has been dewatered, even if only for a short stretch.

Members of the Corps of Discovery were awed by the power and beauty of the cascades they encountered here, but were more than a little inconvenienced as well. Before leaving their winter camp in North Dakota in the spring of 1805, they had been told by their Indian hosts of a great waterfall somewhere upstream, which their informants assured them could be portaged (gear and boats hauled overland) in about a half a day. Instead they found five waterfalls, and the portage took them nearly a month. It was one of the most arduous experiences during their 8,000-mile journey, and the unexpectedly long delay nearly led to disaster later in the trip, forcing the group into the Rocky Mountains as winter approached instead of during the clear, warm days of early autumn.

The grand portage is described in exhaustive detail at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, an imposing structure perched on a bluff above the river in Great Falls, where exhibits describe the explorers' entire journey and present both white and Indian perspectives on its significance. On the day I visited, employees of the U.S. Forest Service, which operates the center, were down by the river demonstrating how to make fire with flint and steel, and how to use a compass to map topographic features such as the river's course, as the explorers did. The exercises were interesting, a reminder that in the wilderness in 1805, even the most mundane task -- heating water for coffee, for example -- required skills few travelers possess today.

To make the portage, the explorers camped at a site north of the city, unloaded their boats, and cut down cottonwood trees to make wheeled carts. Because the river cuts through a deep canyon in the Great Falls area, they could not walk around navigational obstacles on the shore but had to climb onto the top of the bordering bluffs and walk 18 miles before they could find a suitable place to put their dugout canoes back on the water.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were greatly impressed by the ferocity and strength of the grizzly bear. They referred to grizzles as the "white bear," and noted with some alarm that the animals commonly pursued their men for as much as a mile across the Plains even after having been shot numerous times through the lungs and heart.

Empty, the dugouts weighed about 1,000 pounds each. It was July, and violent summer thunderstorms pummeled the men with hailstones and threatened to drown them with flash floods. The area was infested with rattlesnakes and mosquitoes, and pricklypear cactus hidden in the grass stabbed through the thin leather of their moccasins. Grizzlies repeatedly menaced them. Dragging the six heavy boats out of the canyon and across the rumpled landscape required tremendous effort.

"The men has to haul with all their strength wate & art," Clark wrote in his journal, his tenuous grasp of spelling and grammar eroded by exhaustion. "Maney times every man all catching the grass & knobes & stones with their hands to give them more force in drawing on the Canoes and Loads-- (at) every halt, thosee not employed in repairing the course, are asleep in a moment, maney limping from the soreness of their feet some become fant for a few moments, but no man complains all go cheerfully on. To state the fatigues of this party would take up more of the journal than other notes which I find scarcely time to set down."

Back and forth they trekked, hauling canoes and tons of gear on their two balky carts, which frequently broke down. The actual portage took eight days; preparing for it -- and then for the next stage of the journey to come, for which they carved two more canoes -- added to the delay. The group spent from June 21 to July 15 in the Great Falls area. To celebrate the Fourth of July, they feasted on bacon, bison, beans and dumplings, drank the last of their whiskey, and danced to the music of Pierre Cruzatte's fiddle until rain drove them to bed.

From Great Falls, Lewis and Clark could see mountains on the horizon, their summits ominously blanketed with snow even in midsummer. The view provided proof that their long sojourn on the Great Plains was about to end, and that they soon would face even tougher challenges than the long, exhausting portage.

"We all believe that we are about the enter the most perilous and difficult part of our Voyage," Lewis wrote, "yet I see no one repining; all appear ready to meet those difficuelties which await us with resolution and becoming fortitude."

As I drove south from Great Falls, the change in the landscape became obvious. The river, which until this point had been broad, shallow and often muddy, typical of Plains rivers, grew clear, narrow and quick -- more like a mountain trout stream than the murky haunt of catfish. Rocky peaks and ridges began emerging from the prairie like islands from a shallow sea.

I stopped at Ulm Pishkun State Park, which preserves a buffalo jump (known to them as a pishkun), used for hundreds of years by Plains Indians to slaughter bison before the tribes obtained horses and became accomplished mounted hunters. A high bluff rises from the plains near the town of Ulm, with sheer drops from the limestone along its crest.

Indians would drive herds of bison toward the cliff, and butcher them after they stampeded blindly over the edge. Although the butchering site below the cliff has mostly been buried by erosional debris over the centuries, countless bone and obsidian fragments still lie scattered on the surface.

Square Butte, a prominent Montana landmark, greeted Lewis and Clark as they headed south from the Great Falls area toward their encounter with the Rocky Mountains. They named the butte Fort Mountain, but the name did not stick.

Atop the cliff, I followed a trail to the edge of the jump. In the far distance, the Rocky Mountain front loomed beyond Square Butte, a prominent Montana landmark often painted by famed western artist Charles M. Russell. Lewis and Clark had called it Fort Mountain, but like many of their efforts at geographical nomenclature the name did not hold up over time.

Sometimes, though, the names Lewis and Clark attached to the landscape were just too good for subsequent generations to abandon. One such label persists at Gates of the Mountains Recreation Area on Holler Lake, one of several reservoirs created by hydropower dams in a narrow valley slicing through the Big Belt Mountains south of Great Falls.

Storm clouds were gathering that afternoon as I arrived at the lake. I boarded a tour boat just as a thunderstorm hit and rain began to fall. As the driver talked about local geography, natural history and the relevance of the area to Lewis and Clark's expedition, we chugged slowly along the shoreline, drenched by wind-blown rain, watching eagles and ducks.

Layered limestone cliffs, the strata twisted and then eroded into fantastic shapes by wind, rain and running water, towered high above the lake. To the explorers, the Missouri River -- whose course lay below us, drowned under 14 feet of water -- appears at first to dead-end against the mountains, but has cut a narrow channel through them. As that channel winds between the cliff, the rock seems to open like a gate to admit the river. The explorers, after so many months in open terrain, were impressed by the geological spectacle.

"This evening we entered the most remarkablle clifts that we have yet seen," Lewis wrote. "These clifts rise from the waters edge on either side perpendicularly to the hight of 1200 feet. Every object here wears a dark and gloomy aspect -- from the singular appearance of this place I called it the gates of the rocky mountains." The name stuck. Besides Gates of the Mountains Recreation Area and Gates of the Mountains Boat Tours, there is also a Gates of the Mountains Wilderness in the adjoining Helena National Forest.

Clark, as usual, was more prosaic and laconic than Lewis, noting in his journal entry for the same day (July 19, 1805) that travel on foot in the area was difficult. "My feet is verry much brused & cut walking over the flint & constantly stuck full of Prickley pear thorns," he wrote. "I pulled out 17 by the light of the fire tonight."

From Gates of the Mountains, the Lewis and Clark trail leads south, following the river past the state capital of Helena, situated at the base of the Elkhorn Mountains. Lewis and Clark were frustrated by the Missouri's resolute turn to the south after they passed the great falls. They knew they had to continue west and over the Rockies, but they also were charged with determining the source of the Missouri, and as summer waned the recalcitrant waterway seemed to be bringing them no closer to their inevitable mountain passage.

They were climbing, though. When I awoke one July morning in Helena the temperature outside was a brisk 47 degrees, the coolest air I had felt since setting out from home a month earlier. Helena is still on the Plains, but its elevation is 4,200 feet above sea level. St. Louis, Mo., at the other end of the river, is at 535 feet. During their laborious upstream slalom across the continental interior, the explorers had gained 3,665 feet in elevation, -- nearly three-quarters of a vertical mile -- while dragging, pushing, paddling and poling their boats against the Missouri's formidable current.

Near Three Forks, Mont., the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers come together to form the Missouri. The location today is protected within Missouri Headwaters State Park.

From Helena, I drove to Missouri Headwaters State Park, where the Missouri River officially begins with the joining of the Jefferson and Madison rivers; just downstream they are joined by the Gallatin, filling the numerical complement of tributaries that gave the nearby town of Three Forks its name. (The Gallatin was named after Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, an influential supporter of the expedition in President Jefferson's cabinet; the Madison was named after Secretary of State James Madison, a future president.)

The valley floor is flat, and all three streams meander considerably through thickets of willows and brush. The park's amenities were scant a year ago -- a few weathered signs, a small campground, a nice picnic area -- but Missouri Headwaters is among the most significant locations along the Lewis and Clark trail and the state of Montana plans to upgrade the facilities for the crowds of bicentennial celebrants expected to begin arriving next year.

The location was significant to the explorers not just because it represented the birthplace of the great river that had ruled their fate for 14 months, but because it represented a homecoming for Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman whose interpretive skills they would soon rely upon as they prepared to leave the water and travel overland for the first time.

"Our present camp," Lewis wrote on July 28, when the group had paused for a few days at the confluence of the Missouri's three tributaries, "is precisely on the spot that the Snake Indians were encamped at the time the Minnetares of the Knife R. first came in sight of them five years since. from hence they retreated about three miles up Jeffersons river and concealed themselves in the woods, the Minnetares pursued, attacked them, killed 4 men 4 women and number of boys and made prisoners of all the females and four boys, Sah-cah-gar-we-ah our Indian woman was one of the female prisoners taken at that time; tho' I cannot discover that she shews any immotion of sorrow in recollecting this event, or joy in being restored to her native country; if she has enough to eat and a few trinkets to wear I believe she would be perfectly content anywhere."

In this entry, Lewis seems insensitive and disdainful toward the woman whom later generations regard (somewhat inaccurately) as having played a pivotal role in the expedition. It reveals more about Lewis than it does about Sacagawea; for all his strengths as a leader and his skills at describing plants, animals and the natives' material culture, Lewis never really empathized with the Indians he met or regarded them as his equals.

"He could bring to life a weapon or a skin shirt," historian James P. Ronda wrote in "Lewis and Clark Among the Indians," a study of the explorers' interaction with western tribes, "but the people who created those objects always seemed just beyond his reach."

After resting for a few days in the Three Forks area, Lewis and Clark began ascending the stream they had dubbed the Jefferson -- "in honor of that illustrious personage Thomas Jefferson (the author of our enterprize)" -- which they decided was most likely the main source of the Missouri; it was the largest of the tributaries and headed most directly west.

The current was strong, the water cold, the river shallow enough to wade. The men often found it impossible to paddle their canoes upstream through the rapids and were forced to drag them. Several of the men were injured, with twisted ankles, bruised feet, strained muscles, a dislocated shoulder. It was now August, and already the nights were beginning to grow cold. And always, the snow-covered mountains loomed before them, reminding them that they soon would have to leave the water and begin climbing if they hoped to reach the Pacific coast this year.

"The valley along which we passed today, and through which the river winds it's meandering course is from 6 to 8 miles wide and consists of a beautiful level plain with but little timber, and that confined to the verge of the river," Lewis wrote on Aug. 2, 1805. "The plain ascends gradually on either side of the river to the bases of two ranges of high mountains. The tops of these mountains are yet covered partially with snow, while we in the valley are nearly suffocated with the intense heat of the mid-day sun; the nights are so cold that two blankets are not more than sufficient covering."

Lewis and Clark had known all along that they would have to cross a mountain range between the headwaters of the Missouri and the headwaters of the Columbia River, which they intended to ride to the sea. Although their information about the height and width of the range was faulty, they had long planned for this part of the journey, intending to trade with the Shoshone (or Snake, in their terminology) for horses needed to carry their supplies and gear across the mountains. The Shoshone were Sacaggawea's people, and her inclusion among the Corps of Discovery on that long-ago winter day in North Dakota had been calculated to abet this crucial transaction.

But day after day passed, the river becoming ever more difficult to negotiate, and the Shoshonee did not appear. Growing desperate, Lewis set out with three men ahead of the boats on a last-ditch effort to find the elusive horse owners, even if it meant crossing the Rockies and tracking them down along the Columbia.

"In short it is my resolution," he wrote, " to find them or some others, who have horses if it should cause me a trip of one month. For without horses we shall be obliged to leave a great part of our stores, of which, it appears to me that we have a stock already insufficient for the length of the voyage before us."

From Three Forks, I paralleled the explorers' course along the Jefferson, and then the Beaverhead River, the Jefferson's primary tributary. Outside of Dillon, a small town nestled in a verdant bowl surrounded by small mountain ranges, I found my way to the Diamond Hitch Ranch, where I had arranged a guided horseback ride for me and my teen-age daughter (as any parent can attest, it is difficult to pass through horse country with a teen-aged daughter in tow and not stop for a ride).

Bob McNeil, the owner, met us near the corral and introduced us to Sue Osborne, who would be our guide. It was a gray day, promising summer rain. We mounted up and spent the next three hours roaming the ranch, which occupies dry, sage-covered hills above Dillon.

Rain spattered us at times, and the air was quite cool. The views were magnificent: From the hilltops, we could see the Bitterroot Mountains and the Beaverhead River meandering across the valley. Even for someone with no particular affinity for horses, there was something timeless and evocative about the experience -- bouncing along atop a big animal with the smell of crushed sage and oiled leather in the air, and little to mar the view of wide-open countryside.

On the landscape before us we could see the next segment of the Lewis and Clark trail, the route the explorers would follow upstream as river dwindled to creek and brook, and finally disappeared altogether into the hard ground of the Rocky Mountains. They would switch to horses then, but their experience in the Bitterroots would not be nearly as pleasant as ours was that July afternoon at the Diamond Hitch. It would, in fact, test them nearly beyond their endurance.