Journal entry · November 8, 1805

Columbia estuary, storm-bound, vote on winter camp — Patrick Gass: November 8, 1805

Patrick Gass · Columbia estuary, storm-bound, vote on winter camp · Thwaites Vol. Gass 1807 First Edition

The place today: Columbia estuary, storm-bound, vote on winter camp

cloudy, and there was a hard wind from the east. We went
about 5 miles and came to a bay 12 or 14 miles wide. We
had to coast round it, as the wind raised the waves so
high we could go no other way. We halted and dined at a
point on the north side of the bay where a small river comes
in. We again proceeded on coasting, till we came to a point
of land where the bay becomes much narrower; and the water
quite salt. The waves here ran so high we were obliged to-
lie to, and let the tide leave our canoes on dry ground. This
point we called Cape Swell; and the bay above, Shallow Bay,
as there is no great depth of water. In crossing the bay when
the tide was out, some of our men got sea sick, the swells were
so great. In it there are a great many swans, geese, ducks and
other water fowls. The whole of this day was wet and disa-
greeable; and the distance we made, in a straight line, was not
more than 9 miles; though the distance we coasted was above
20 miles.

Entities mentioned in this entry

Tools:
Medical:

Auto-extracted from the entry text. Hover any entity for context.

The NPS atlas for this night

right shore near Portugues Pt, WA

NPS campsite reconstruction (Bergantino) · Camp of November 8 to November 9, 1805

NPS sites within 5 miles of this camp

Nearest 360° view, 3.5 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

Columbia estuary, storm-bound, vote on winter camp in 360°

St Mary's Church · 33 panoramas on this trail · 18 journal entries written here Nearest capture is 1.7 mi from the tagged location.

10 frames across 0.1 mi of the route around this location

Help improve this record

See something that needs correcting, or know a source we are missing? The archive gets better through its readers.

Send a correction

Our Partners

Follow the research

New findings, additions, and corrections from the archive. One email a month, no noise.