Lewis and Clarks Expedition Journal Entry
Write a journal entry based on the actual experience of a member of Lewis and Clarks expedition
June 23, 1804
This afternoon we passed some of the highest mountains I had ever seen; and on the top of the highest we saw some Mountain sheep, which the natives say are common about the Rocky mountains. These were the first we had seen, and we attempted to kill some of them but did not succeed. Captain Lewis, and one of the men, traveled some distance by land and killed a white bear. The natives call them white, but they are more of a brown gray. They are longer than the common black bear, and have much larger feet and talons.
Capt. Clark and Drewyer killed the largest brown bear tonight that any of us had ever seen. It was a most tremendous looking animal, and extremely hard to kill he had five shots through his lungs and five others in various parts he swam more than half the distance across the river to a sandbar, & it was at least twenty minutes before he died; he did not attempt to attack, but fled and made the most tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot. We had no means of weighing this monster; ... this bear differs from the common black bear in several respects; it’s claws are much longer and more curved, it’s tale shorter, it’s hair which is of a reddish or brown, is longer thicker and finer than that of the black bear; his liver lungs and heart are much larger even in proportion with his size; the heart particularly was as large as that of a large Ox. A very cold night last night our moccasins froze right next to the fire.
June 24, 1804
We set off at sunrise we saw a huge group of buffalo. We saw a very large brown bear on the hills today. Six men went from the canoes to kill the bear they fired at him and only wounded him, he started to chase after them and chased 2 men in to a canoe. They took off in the river and fired at him some more. Some of the men on shore wounded him worse, the bear then chased one man down a steep bank into the River and almost got a hold of him, but he kept running into the stream, so that the...