The entries of November 12, 1805, capture the Corps of Discovery pinned against the north shore of the Columbia estuary, near what is now Point Ellice, by a violent storm that had already lasted days. All three narrators present — William Clark, Patrick Gass, and John Ordway — describe the same sequence of events: a predawn thunderstorm with hail, a brief lull, a second deluge, the relocation of camp around a point to the mouth of a small creek, and an attempt by three men to cross the river by Indian canoe. Yet the three accounts differ dramatically in length, register, and what each narrator chooses to preserve.
The Storm Itself: Compression and Expansion
Clark’s entry is by far the most expansive, opening with a meteorological narrative of unusual literary intensity:
a tremendious thunder Storm abt. 3 oClock this morning accompanied by wind from the S W. and Hail, this Storm of hard Clap’s thunder Lighting and hail untill about 6 oClock at intervals it then became light for a Short time when the heavens became darkined by a black Cloud from the S, W, & a hard rain Suckceeded which lasted untill 12 oClock with a hard wind which raised the Seas tremendiously high braking with great force and fury against the rocks & trees on which we lie
Ordway compresses the same hours into a single sentence: “hard Thunder lightning and hail this morning… the rain continued hard all day.” Gass, characteristically the briefest, simply notes “rain, hail, thunder and lightning” before turning immediately to practical matters. The pattern is consistent across the journals of this week: Clark, as co-commander, treats the storm as both navigational hazard and scene worth describing; the sergeants treat it as a fact to be acknowledged and moved past.
Shared Observation, Independent Eyes
One detail confirms that Ordway and Clark were looking at the same horizon at the same moment. Ordway writes that “we Saw a mountain on the opposite Shore covred with Snow,” while Clark records, “It was clear at 12 for a Short time. I observed the Mountains on the opposit Side was covered with Snow.” The convergence of timing — both noting the brief noon clearing — and the matching observation suggest either shared conversation or simultaneous independent notice rather than copying; Ordway’s phrasing is too distinct from Clark’s to be derivative.
Gass, by contrast, omits the snow-covered mountain entirely. His attention stays fixed on the canoes: “we… fixed our canoes and loaded them with stone to keep them down.” Clark confirms the same labor in more anxious language, describing the canoes as “at the mercy of the waves & drift wood” and explaining that the party had “Scured them as well as it is possible by Sinking and wateing them down with Stones.” Here Gass and Clark clearly describe the same action, but Gass’s tone is matter-of-fact where Clark’s is freighted with worry.
The Human Cost: Clark Alone
The most striking divergence is Clark’s extended meditation on the party’s physical condition — a passage with no parallel in either Gass or Ordway:
It would be distressing to a feeling person to See our Situation at this time all wet and cold with our bedding &c. also wet, in a Cove Scercely large nough to Contain us… our party has been wet for 8 days and is truly disagreeable, their robes & leather Clothes are rotten from being Continually wet, and they are not in a Situation to get others, and we are not in a Situation to restore them
Neither sergeant registers this suffering in writing. Ordway in fact concludes on a note that borders on contentment: “we got a more comfortable Camp, we giged several more Trout in this creek.” Gass too ends his entry with the practical fact of remaining at camp and dispatching the reconnaissance canoe. The contrast illuminates a register difference that runs throughout the expedition’s records: the captains, particularly Clark in this stretch, bear the narrative burden of expressing the party’s hardship, while the enlisted journalists — perhaps by temperament, perhaps by the conventions of military journal-keeping — hold to the surface of events.
The Reconnaissance Canoe
All three narrators mention the attempt by three men to take an Indian-built canoe toward the sea. Gass identifies the purpose — “to ascertain whether there were any white people there” — but not the men. Clark names them: “Gibson Bratten & Willard.” Ordway, in this entry, leaves the episode to a footnoted cross-reference. Read together, the three accounts reconstruct the day more fully than any single journal allows: Gass supplies intent, Clark supplies personnel and outcome, Ordway supplies the geographic anchor of the new camp at the creek mouth.
