Prairie Dogs

Not only did the Corps of Discovery have barrels of things to transport, but as they went along, they began to acquire critters that no white man had encountered before.  They encountered 174 plants and 134 species and subspecies of animals new to science.  I found a really cool list at this website:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lewisandclark/resources_discoveries_animal.html

The one that they had the most difficulty describing was the Prairie Dog, so they spent a whole day capturing one and ultimately sent it back to Thomas Jefferson in Washington!

For those of you who have never seen a prairie dog, they live in colonies, dig their homes in the ground, add a series of connecting tunnels, and are fast as lightening.  They have a little bark or yip like a small dog.  If you ever played the game "Whack a Mole" then you know what a prairie dog town looks like, with them popping their heads out of the holes all over the place and are so fast that you can't "whack" 'em.  We have prairie dog towns in west Texas - and all over middle America where the prairies are vast.

In the picture, the box is sitting on a bundle.  That's also how the Corps transported things.  The cloth is oil skin and was used to protect things from getting wet as they spent literally years on boats in the water.  These also had to be hefted onto shoulders whenever a portage was required.