This Christmas of 1805 was celebrated in new Fort Clatsop, among the flat-headed Clatsops and Chinooks and Cathlamets at the mouth of the rainy Columbia River. The men fired a volley, before breakfast, and in front of the captains’ door old Cruzatte, accompanied by Drouillard and the other Frenchmen, sang a lively Christmas song. But there was no feast, because the only food in stock was some roots, pounded fish, and lean elk meat. The captains distributed a little tobacco to the men who smoked, and Peter and the men who did not use tobacco received each a handkerchief.
The rain poured all day, but the cabins were tight above and below, so that everybody stayed dry and warm.
Now the expedition might settle down to the winter’s routine. Chimneys were yet to be put up for the men’s cabins――fires were tried, in open hearths in the middle of the rooms, Indian fashion, and proved too smoky. A fence of high, close pickets, as at Fort Mandan, needs must be erected to guard against attack.
The captains’ cabin had been built around a large stump, smoothly sawed; this was their writing table, on which they spread their maps and journals. Captain Clark had traded with the Indians for a panther skin seven feet long; this made a good rug. York occupied the same cabin. Chaboneau was the captains’ cook; he and Sa-ca-ja-we-a and little Toussaint lived in another room, built on. The men were divided into four messes, each with a cook, and the supplies were doled out from the storehouse every morning.
Drouillard, the chief hunter, and George Shannon, John Collins, Francois Labiche and Reuben Fields were sent out to hunt for elk and deer; but the meat spoiled so quickly, even although smoked, in this damp climate, that Joe Fields, William Bratton, Alec Willard, George Gibson and Peter Wiser were ordered to the seashore with kettles, to make salt.
They built a furnace or fireplace, of stones, and boiled down kettlesful of salt water. They brought back a gallon of good salt, for table use and for preserving the meat. All winter the salt-makers were kept at work. Peter served his turn.
The hunters were constantly out, chasing elk over the bogs. The meat not eaten was salted and smoke-dried; from the tallow, candles were run, in reed moulds; and from the hides the men made shirts and trousers and moccasins, in preparation for the next journey. The captains determined that the whole party should return by land, as soon as the travel season opened. No ship was to be expected.