The young Shoshone woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark from Fort Mandan to the Pacific Ocean and back has been part of our history for over two hundred years. The facts of her history have often been obscured by myth, speculation and fiction. There is even disagreement on the spelling and meaning of her name. Sacajawea or Sacagawea? Bird-woman or boat-puller? In North Dakota, she is Sakakawea.

Most of the facts concerning this fascinating woman are contained in the Journals of the expedition. Of course, these facts have later birthed many of the myths. One sure thing is that in July 1806, two hundred twenty years ago this month, William Clark and his party, including Sacajawea, traveled through the Gallatin Valley.

Their group, having split from the other half of the expedition led by Meriwether Lewis, had been covering familiar ground since leaving Travelers Rest near Missoula on their return from the Pacific. They reached the headwaters of the Missouri at the Three Forks early on July 13th. Here, the company separated with Sergeant Ordway and ten of the men paddling the Missouri north to rendezvous with Lewis, while Clark and the remaining ten men, Sacajawea and her infant son, Pomp, rode overland through the Gallatin Valley end route to the Yellowstone.

They were in new territory, looking for a route through the mountains that would later be known as the Bridgers. The first time the Corps of Discovery sighted the Bridgers and the Gallatin Valley was in July 1805, on their westbound trip. They had been traveling up the Missouri from St Louis since the spring of 1804, and, in reaching the Headwaters, had achieved one of the major goals of the expedition. Lewis recorded; “Believing this to be an essential point in the geography of this western part of the Continent, I determined to remain until I obtained the necessary data for fixing its latitude longitude.”

Upon arriving at the Three Forks, Lewis climbed a limestone cliff. From there, he gazed up each of the three rivers as far as possible. He described, “a high, wide extensive plain...” and wrote that “a distant range of lofty mountains ran their snow-clad tops above the irregular and broken mountains which lie adjacent to this beautiful spot.” The plain he describes is the Gallatin Valley. He and Clark named the three rivers the Gallatin, the Madison, and the Jefferson. Their focus and faces were always west at this point. In July of 1806, when Clark and his party were heading east; the Bridgers were an obstacle to be dealt with.

From most points in the valley the Bridgers present a long lofty rampart beginning in the north and ending in the jumble of the Story Hills before the mountains assert again around Mt Ellis and the Gallatin Range. Clark had noticed buffalo roads leading up to Flathead Pass and proposed crossing the Bridgers there. This route would have taken them into the Shields Valley near present day Wilsall, where they could have ridden downstream to the Yellowstone. But Sacajawea recommended skirting the Bridgers and crossing to their objective farther south.

Clark determined to follow her advice. “The Indian woman who has been of great service to me as a pilot through this country recommends a gap in the mountain more south, which I shall cross.” They spent the day of July 14th riding along the East Gallatin, being forced steadily south by braided channels and beaver dams, eventually taking the higher ground farther south and passing right through what would later become the city of Bozeman.

The company at this point consisted of Clark, York, Sergeant Pryor, Charboneau, Sacajawea and Pomp, and seven privates. Also a herd of “49 horses and 1 colt.” What a picture this presents of them riding across the Valley of Flowers in July, with mountains all around. They surely gazed up at the closely present Bridgers, which pushed them to the southeast in search of a passage.

A local retired MSU professor, Jim Sims, has determined from Clark’s compass readings in the Journals exactly where the party rode through our city. He cites a reading at the intersection of Jackrabbit Lane and Amsterdam Road near Belgrade and another on a hill across from Bozeman Deaconess Hospital. Linking these two spots, Sims comes up with a route that brings the party through Bozeman near Home Depot on N 19th, crossing N 7th very near the Sacajawea statue on that street, past the fairgrounds, on to the confluence of Bozeman Creek and Trail Creek, where Rouse curves east to form Bridger Drive. Clark mentions reaching this place after dinner, when they crossed the south fork (Bozeman Creek) and proceeded up the middle fork (Rocky Creek). “... I kept Continuing near the Same Course up the middle fork Crossed it and camped on a small branch of the middle fork on the NE side at the commencement of the gap of the mountain.” This small branch is Kelly Creek.

In Volume III of History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark published in 1893, Elliot Coues states that on the morning of July 15th the company pursued the buffalo road through Rocky Canon, and later reached Bozeman Pass. This was the route of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the route of the principal wagon road over the pass to Livingston. It is now Interstate 90. He comments several times that the route advised by Sacajawea is the eventual route of the railroad.

Olin Wheeler published The Trail of Lewis and Clark in 1904. This two volume work coincided with the 100th anniversary of the expedition. He also mentions that Clark’s route through the Gallatin Valley likely intersects with the eventual railroad route at many places. But Wheeler locates the camp of July 14th at the mouth of Kelly Canyon, and the route of the 15th as “up that small, semicircular, or crescentic canon through which the trail ran and reached the divide north of Rocky canon.” He goes on to mention the main routes of egress from the east out of the Gallatin Valley in 1904, which were Rocky Canyon, the route of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and Bridger Pass, which is the entrance to Bridger Canyon. He implies that the Kelly Canyon route was not a normal route, though it was “a low, easy, natural pass... .”

Wheeler mentions being guided to the Kelly Canyon spot by Peter Koch of Bozeman. He also reports that Koch took Coues to the same place on a trip he made to the area after his book was published. Coues says Wheeler “saw the situation at a glance and revised his opinion.” Coues went so far as to handwrite a correction in a copy of his book owned by Mr. Koch.

Leaving the last word on the route out of the valley to those who actually made the trip, we read as follows; “...set out and proceeded up the branch to the head, thence over a low gap in the mountain, thence across the heads of the heads of the NE branch of the Gallitin river which we camped near last night, passing over a low dividing ridge to the head of a water Course which runs into the Rochejhone.”

Thus Clark describes riding up Kelly Creek to the gap to the south of Green Mountain and down into the Jackson Creek drainage, and, from there, over Bozeman Pass. He seems to realize that Jackson Creek is a branch of Rocky Creek. Several writers have expressed the opinion that the pass should be named after Sacajawea. It would have been up to Clark, and he did not do so.

Clark referred to the Bridgers on his map of the area as “high mountains, no snow to be seen on them.” However, on the east side he noticed, “bald mountain on which there is some snow.” Clark mentions several times in the Journals how cold it was in July 1806. Sometimes it was too cold to sleep, and mornings were frosty; once, three quarters of an inch of ice lay over the water in a bucket. The large snow cornices on Saddle Peak could easily have lasted into July during a cold year.

Upon reaching the Yellowstone, Clark wished to construct dugout canoes to float downriver. He did not locate suitably large cottonwood trees until he rode on to Springdale about 15 miles east. By July 24th the dugouts were ready, and Clark sailed down the Yellowstone. Clark’s company reached the confluence with the Missouri on August 3rd. He continued on the Missouri in order to avoid voracious mosquitoes, and finally rendezvoused with Lewis on August 12th.

The Bridger Mountains were neither named nor explored by the Corps of Discovery in 1806. They were noticed and dealt with. Any mountains were seen as obstacles rather than objects of grandeur. Today, and even for Coues and Wheeler more than one hundred years ago, there exist roads, railways, even interstate highways that minimize the effect of mountains. For Sacajawea and Clark, they were barriers that had to be overcome. The Gallatin Valley is ringed with high mountains. The explorers found a good way through them. The Indian woman’s memory was reliable, and the great geographer William Clark trusted her. Fitting, then, that the great peak of those mountains above the valley bears her name.