Great Falls Portage — Joseph Whitehouse: June 21, 1805

a fair pleasant morning, the wind as usal. the party all
raised up eairly. Cap! Lewis and Clark with all the party
except 3 Set out with a waggon & baggage to take the canoe
& loading which was hailed on the hill yesterday up to the
upper end of the portage, where we Shall form a Camp. Cap!
Lewis & 3 or 4 men carried all their baggage in order to Stay
up their, in order to git the Iron boat in readiness &c. the
bufFalow around the lower Camp verry thick Some gangs
Swam the River Cap* Clarks Servant york killed one which
was verry fat. Cap! Clark informed us that he Saw 40 or 50
Swimming the River abT the falls and Some went down over
them which he could not See them rise any more, a nomber
got to Shore half drowned, in this way great numbers of
those animels are lost and accounts for So many as we Saw
lying on the Shores below the falls ever Since we came from
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the Mandans & Grossvauntares but a vast deal pleantier near
them, the country in general is verry high, no timber back
from the river and but verry little on the river, but bluffs &
high Clifts the most of the Shores, we are a little South of
the Mandans, but have had no verry hot weather as yet.