Journal entry · June 24, 1805

Great Falls Portage — Joseph Whitehouse: June 24, 1805

Joseph Whitehouse · Great Falls Portage · Thwaites Vol. Thwaites Vol 7

The place today: Great Falls Portage

a fair morning. we halled out the last canoe, & turned hir
up to dry. all the party present Set out eairly with a waggon
& baggage &c. for the upper Camp. we had Some difficulty
in gitting the loading up on the high plains to where the
canoes were left last night, though after a little fatigue we got
all the loading which we intended carrying at this load in 2
Canoes & proceeded on to a creek called willow creek 7 miles
from the lower Camp & halted to refresh ourselves. made a
tongue to one of the truck waggons, & proceeded on the
wind blew Steady from the S. East. we hoisted a Sail in the
[ 106 ]
1805] WHITEHOUSE’S JOURNAL
largest canoe which helped us much as 4 men halling at
the chord with a harness. passed through high Smoth delight-
ful plains. Sawa nomber of antelopes & buffalow. towards
evening when we were within about 3 miles of the upper
Camp, their came up of a Sudden a violent thunder Shower
& rained a mazeing hard, for about 15 or 20 minutes, in which
time the water Stood on the ground over our mockasons.
our water being all gone and all the men thursty drunk harty
out of the puddles. at dusk we arived at the upper camp, and
unloaded found Some of the baggage wet by the raining in
the canoes &c. we found Shannon here. he had been in-
camped up the medison River. he had killed 3 buffalow 8
Deer & several antelopes but no Elk.

The NPS atlas for this night

Lower Portage Camp, Hower Coulee

NPS campsite reconstruction (Bergantino) · Camp of June 16 to June 27, 1805

Nearest 360° view, 1.9 mi ↗ (opens in a new tab)

See this place on the Trail Explorer →

From the NPS Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Park Atlas, mirrored here on September 21, 2026. This copy is not authoritative; NPS remains the system of record. About the mirror

Terrain360 · the place today

Great Falls Portage in 360°

Rivers Edge Trail · 11 panoramas on this trail · 144 journal entries written here Nearest capture is 1.3 mi from the tagged location.

10 frames across 0.2 mi of the route around this location

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