On this day in Lewis & Clark history...
While wintering at Fort Clatsop (Astoria, Oregon), the lead canisters are unsealed and the gunpowder they hold is found to be safe and dry. The Captains describe the Coastal Indian canoes and paddles.
From the journals...
Saturday February 1st 1806.
today we opened and examined all our ammunition, which had been secured in leaden canisters.
we found [the powder] in good order, perfectly as dry as when first put in the canesters
Lead canisters
Saturday Febry 1st
A clear cold morning.
Netul Landing Sunrise (Fort Clatsop)
Saturday February 1st 1806
Some of the large Canoes are upwards of 50 feet long and will Carry from 8 to 12 thousand lbs. or from 20 to 30 persons, and Some of them particularly on the Sea Coast are waxed painted and ornimented with curious images on bow and Stern; those images sometimes rise to the hight of five feet; the pedestile on which these images are fixed, are Sometimes cut out of the Solid Stick with the Canoe, and the image is formed of Separate pieces of timber firmly united with tenants and mortices without the appearance of a Single Spike or nail of any kind.
NW coastal Indian canoe
