Wife Mother and Guide

Journal 2006 07 06
Wife, Mother and Guide

“…the Indian woman wife to Shabono informed me that she had been in this plain frequently and knew it well that the Creek which we decended was a branch of Wisdom river and when we assended the higher part of the plain we would discover a gap in the mountains in our direction to the Canoes, and when we arived at that gap we would See a high point of a mountain covered with snow in our direction the canoes. we proceeded on 1 mile and Crossd. a large Creek from the right which heads in a Snow Mountain and fish Creek over which there was a road thro' a gap.” William Clark

“I observe the appearance of old buffalow roads and some heads on this part of the mountain.” William Clark

The appearance of buffalo sign, roads and skulls, must have been a welcome sight. Have you ever drooled in anticipation over a prime cut of steak served up at a premium steakhouse? That is how the men must have seen bison meat. Let’s put it in perspective. They haven’t eaten any dog meat since they found deer. And they will eat elk and bison over deer if they have a choice.

Captain Lewis’ record for this part of the expedition are not the full texts he normally writes. They are notes and records of distances and compass bearings with observations interspersed. Evidently Lewis would record enough to remind him of the events of the day as he recorded those events in the larger, official version of the expedition record. Steady William Clark used an economy of work and recorded what was necessary the first time requiring less work in camp.

If you looked on a map you would find the Captains are almost the same distance east separated by about one hundred and twenty miles. Captain Lewis is north of Captain Clark. Captain Lewis and his party are in the Nevada Valley at N46 58’ 31” W113 5’ 5” and just over 4,200 feet in elevation. The gap spoken of above is Big Hole Pass in Montana. On a roadmap it is about thirty miles west of Dillon, MT off Highway 15 and about fifty-five miles southeast of Butte, MT. For those GPS geeks like me the location is N45 19’ 56” W113 14’ 14”. For those seriously geeky map and GPS nerds the Universal Transverse Mercator Grid (UTM) is 12T 0324700 5022000. Big Hole Pass is high at just under 7,500 feet, or 2255 meters for the rest of the world. The Corps of Discovery used the Latitude and Longitude system still most common in mapping the world. Our military forces use a grid very similar to the UTM and, like the metric system of measuring distances, while less common to our understanding is easier to use. The GPS system in your handheld device, boat or vehicle will allow for choices of grids that are sure to confuse you and get you lost if you don’t understand their purpose. Stick with latitude and longitude and UTM if your maps are set up for it.

For the third time during the expedition Sacagawea becomes their confident guide and leads them correctly to their next destination. Wouldn’t we love to know more about this young mother? Volumes have been written. Most is speculation. Her place in history is unique. No teenage mother with her baby accompanied Marco Polo, Columbus, Magellan, Shackleford or Sir Edmund Hillary. We do have highly educated young women piloting spacecraft today. But no teenagers who are married to the Martian interpreter! Certainly no teenagers carrying and infant in a spacesuit while performing a space walk like our shuttle astronauts are doing this very day!

My thought this morning lends itself to what do we really know about the heart of men and women. And how do we find out?

“Will not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart.”
(Psalms 44:21 ASV)

I pray for each of us today that He would put us in the place where His purpose and destiny over our lives are made known. That crucible where gold and silver are separated from the common dross. That place where our worth is revealed.

Like Sacagawea, the young teenage prisoner who was given as a wife, became a mother and took part in an adventure uncommon to man.

Proceed on.