North American Porcupine

May 3, 1805, near the mouth of the Porcupine River.

I had a pretty bad experience with the porcupine because I stepped on one of the blasted quills of the animal.  I bet seaman has had a lot of trouble with the porcupines and their quills.  From now on I will watch were i put my feet.

Northern Bobcat

April 7, 1805

The bobcat is an amazing animal and we were amazed when we saw it on the trail.  We have only saw it two times during the whole expedition.  The main reason that we do not see it very much is because it only hunts at night.

Grizzly Bear

Sunday, May 5, 1805

"In the evening we saw a Brown or Grisley beare on a sand beech, I went out with one man Geo Drewyer & Killed the bear, which was verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill we Shot ten Balls into him before we killed him, & 5 of those Balls through his lights This animal is the largest of the carnivorous kind I ever saw we had nothing that could way him, I think his weight may be stated at 500 pounds. we had him skined and divided, the oile tried up & put in Kegs for use."

Long-Tailed Weasel

November 9, 1804, at Fort Mandan

Today found a Weasel we saw one in the water swimming so fast we knew that we could not catch it even by the tail that was about as long as the weasel itself.  So we went to find a borrow but we could not find one until a man yelled "I found one!"  It was hard to catch one because we tried to flush them out with water and expected to come on out like the prairie dogs but the Weasels would not come out because they were used to water coming in when it rains.  But finally we found a horizontal burrow on the bank of the Missouri river that we could dig into and find the Weasel.

WILLIAM CLARK   November 12, 1804 

"The Mandans are at war with all who make war only, and wish to be at peace with all nations, Seldom the ogressors."

Antelope

September 17, 1804

"We found the Antelope extremely shy and watchful so much that we had been unable to get a shot at them; when at rest they generally select the most elevated point in the area, and as they are watchful and extremely quick of sight and their sense of smelling so acute it is almost impossible to approach them within the range of a gunshot. They will frequently discover you and flee.  I had this day an opportunity of witnessing the agility and the superior fleetness of this animal which was to me really astonishing.  

Coyote

September 18, 1804

The first time we saw a coyote I was sleeping when i heard them running into camp.  They were very fast and a little bit smaller then seaman the Captains dog , Seaman.  Captain Lewis said that we would be seeing a lot of them on the road.