Uncovering the Expedition

By editor

Lolo, Missoula County

Well, now, if there ever was a tale to tickle the fancy of a man who appreciates a good yarn, it’s this business down in Lolo, Missoula County. For a spell, folks had it all figured out, neat as a pin, where those intrepid chaps, Lewis and Clark, had set up their Travelers’ Rest camp. Right there, they said, where Lolo Creek spills into the Bitterroot River, about a mile and a half east of where you’re likely standing now, scratching your head and wondering what all the fuss is about. It was a comfortable notion, a settled fact, much like believing the sun rises purely for your personal illumination.

But, as is often the case with settled facts, a few curious souls came along in 1996, members of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, no less, and started poking around. They got a hunch, a suspicion, that perhaps the whole affair wasn’t quite so settled after all. It’s a peculiar thing, a hunch. It ain’t scientific, not in the way a man with a microscope understands things, but it’s often the spark that lights the fuse of discovery. And so, these folks, with nothing but a feeling and a good deal of gumption, turned their attention to the immediate vicinity, just south of Lolo Creek.

Now, this is where the story gets interesting, for it involves a fellow named Dan Hall, a historical archaeologist by trade. He wasn’t content to merely squint at old maps or listen to campfire legends. No, sir. Mr. Hall brought out the modern marvels: metal detectors, magnetometers, and all manner of contraptions designed to peer beneath the earth’s crust without actually disturbing it too much. He was looking for whispers, you see, subtle changes in the magnetic properties of the soil, like a detective searching for a faint footprint in the dust. And sure enough, he found them , several spots where the earth itself seemed to be holding a secret.

Come the summer of 2002, Mr. Hall and his archaeological team got down to brass tacks. They excavated these “anomalies,” as they called them, these peculiar disturbances in the dirt. And what did they find? Why, evidence, plain as day, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s very own cookfire and, if you’ll pardon the frankness, their latrine. Now, a latrine might not sound like the stuff of grand historical narratives, but sometimes, the most profound truths are found in the most unglamorous places. It’s a bit like finding a king’s crown in a privy , unexpected, but undeniably authentic.

The real clincher, the piece of evidence that sealed the deal, came from the soil of that very latrine. When it was put under the scientific gaze, it coughed up mercury vapor. Mercury vapor! And what, you might ask, is the significance of such a thing? Why, it was the residue of Dr. Rush’s Thunderbolts, a powerful purgative, a sort of internal tempest, that was quite the rage back in the day for ailing members of the expedition. It seems those fellows were quite fond of a good cleanse, even if it meant leaving a rather distinct chemical signature for future generations to ponder.

As Captain Clark himself noted on August 20, 1804, concerning the unfortunate Mr. Floyd, "Probably no physician of the time could have done much more for Floyd than the captains did. A purgative like Rush’s pills, their usual remedy for digestive disorders, could only have hastened Floyd’s death, but this is probably what Dr. Benjamin Rush himself would have prescribed if he had been present,along with bleeding, which would have accomplished nothing." It paints a rather vivid picture of the medical practices of the era, doesn't it? It speaks, perhaps, to the sheer grit of those explorers who survived not only the wilderness but also their own doctors.

This physical evidence, this mercury-laced dirt and the charcoal carbon-dated to the very time of the Expedition, along with a military uniform button, a blue glass trading bead, and a spilled piece of lead sourced from Kentucky (where Meriwether Lewis was getting his military lead, mind you), was accepted as irrefutable proof. The Corps of Discovery had indeed camped right here. And so, in 2006, the National Park Service, with all due solemnity, shifted the boundaries of the Travelers’ Rest National Historic Landmark to encompass this newly verified spot. It just goes to show, history, like a good river, sometimes changes its course, and it takes a keen eye and a bit of digging to find where it truly flowed.