Against the Current, Up the Mississippi River

20 November 1803

Lewis and Clark turned the boats against the Mississippi River current and experienced a new challenge. Traveling against the current would last until the expedition reached Camp Fortunate, in today’s Clark Canyon Reservoir, Southwestern Montana (near 44 0 59′ 36″ N, 1 12 0 51 ‘ 43″ W). At Cape Girardeau, Lewis met and dined with Louis Lorimier, a former Ohio trader and uncle of George Drouillard, expedition interpreter and hunter. Lorimier is credited with founding Cape Girardeau.⁽¹⁾

Their camp of 25 November 1803 was at the Grand Tower Rock, a four-million-year-old rock formation near the west bank of the Mississippi River. The Grand Tower was first noted by Jacques Marquette in 1673 but was measured and mapped by William Clark.⁽²⁾

At Kaskaskia, Lewis leaves the crew and boats in Clark’s care after recruiting more members for the expedition, including John Ordway and Patrick Gass, two of the more prominent members of the expedition. The White Pirogue was purchased to transport the additional men. [Thanks to the Southern Illinois University Center for Archeological Investigation, new research is determining the exact location of the 1803 American Ft. Kaskaskia.]

https://news.siu.edu/2018/05/053118-unknown-american-fort-found-by-archaeological-field-school.php

Clark reports they crossed the river to St. Genevieve and later back across the river to Old Ft. de Chartres, built in the French Colonial Period. On 7 December they arrived at Cahokia, a US Post Office site and center of communication during the Lewis and Clark Expedition.⁽³⁾

Sources:

(1) Quaife. Milo, The Journal of Lewis and Ordway, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, page 24-46. Moulton, Gary, The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, University of Nebraska Press, V-2, pages 95-127.

(2) Quaife, Milo, The Journal of Lewis and Ordway, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, page 37 & 38.

(3) Ibid, pages 40-46.