Williams County

— Lewis & Clark in North Dakota —

Thursday and Friday, April 25 and 26, 1805
Rich wildlife heralded the expedition's arrival at the Yellowstone-Missouri confluence. Impatient, Lewis ascended the south bluff to view the "wide and fertile vallies." He camped Thursday night on the Yellowstone. On the winding Missouri, fierce wind nearly swamped Clark's canoes, and ice collected on the oars. He camped on the south bank after 14 river miles.
On Friday, Lewis sent Joseph Fields up the Yellowstone. He passed a well-timbered island, saw Bighorn Sheep, and reported "country...like that of the Missouri." Clark's boats stopped just past the confluence. Finding them "at this long wished for spot," Lewis ordered "a dram...issued to each person." A fiddle appeared and the evening was spent "with much hilarity, singing & dancing."
The captains reported "Immence numbers of Antelope," "beaver in every bend," elk, deer buffalo, and nesting magpies, ducks, geese, and eagles. In the bottoms grew cottonwood, oak, ash, elm, willow, and many berry bushes. Clark measured both rivers at the confluence; the Missouri was 520 yards wide (330 of it water) and the Yellowstone was 858 yards wide (297 of it water).

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Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence
A Beaver Boom
Mosquitoes
Buford-Trenton Project
Fur Trade Forts
Lewis & Clark's America
The Confluence
Oxbow Wetland
Lesser Known Forts at the Confluence
Water Ways and Mean

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