|
|
Most of the hunters on the Lewis and Clark expedition left the fort nearly every day to hunt down animals while others hauled heavy portions of elk meat. Some of the animals they hunted near what people now call "Fort Clatsop" were deer, elk and fish. During their winter's stay at Fort Clatsop, the hunters managed to shoot 131 elk and twenty deer.
Half-rotten meat was dried or jerked to make it more edible. It was rotten because they had no refrigeration. The damp weather caused the meat to spoil faster because bacteria live in moist places.
The most skilled hunter of the party happened to be George Droulliard. On Christmas day they were not very lucky...they had spoiled elk meat for dinner. They made a mistake by not having dried or jerked their elk meat. Also at Fort Clatsop, Indians were surprised by Lewis's air gun. It would be like being shown a computer and not knowing what a computer was before they showed it to you.
Did you know one of their not so good hunting trips was when Lewis was shot in the behind by a nearsighted member of the crew?
One of the ways the Clatsop Indians often got their meals was by making large pits behind trees that elk or deer would fall into. This was good for the Indians because they were not very good hunters.
On Friday January, 3-1806 near one of the Indian villages a whale had recently perished. This blubber the Indians would eat and declare it great food.
Throughout the winter, the Clatsop's Chief Coboway and his people often traded or brought presents, such as native foods like roots, fish, whale blubber, berries and other kinds of fruits. The most valuable of all the roots the "wappetoe" tasted much like a potato. In March when millions of eulachon ( a type of fish) were running up river to spawn, Chief Coboway brought a huge supply of eulachon that Lewis found "soperior to any fish I ever tasted."
|