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 | | Monday November 23, 2009 2:48 AM |
 | | From the Journals of Lewis & Clark in 1804-1805 | |
Catching Fish in a Small Stream
from the journal of Meriwether Lewis
Thursday, 8th OF MAY l80
THURSDAY 8th OF MAY l806
... on the small creek which passes our Camp, the nativs have laterly encamped and as we are informed have been much distressed for provisions, they have fallen a number of small pine in the vicinity of this Encampment for the Seed which is in the bur of which they eate. we are informed that they were compelled to collect the moss of the pine boil & eate it in the latter part of the last winter.
on the creek near our camp I observed a kind of trap which was made with great panes to catch the small fish which pass down with the stream. This was a dam formed of stone s, as to collect the water in a narrow part not exceeding S feet wide from which place the water shot with great force and scattered through some small willows closely connected and fastened with bark, this mat of willow switches was about 4 feet wide and 6 long lying in a horozontal position, fastened at the extremety. the small fish which fell on those willows was washed on the Willows where they [lie] untill taken off &c. I cought or took off those willows 9 small trout from 3 to 7 Inches in length.
Soon after I returned from the fishery an Indian came from a fishery of a similar kind a little above with 12 small fish which he offered me which I declined axcepting as I found from his signs that his house was a short distance above, and that those fisheries afforded the principal part of the food for his children.
In the May of 1806, Lewis and Clark were unable to cross the mountains going back East because of the snow. They had to camp for several weeks at the northmost bend of the Snake River at the present-day sites of Penawawa and Almota, approximately 100 miles south of Spokane.
selection quoted in
The Journals of Lewis and Clark,
edited by Bernard DeVoto, New York: 1953
Last Updated
December 22, 2004
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