One of the reasons Lewis and Clark's boat nearly capsized
was that Charbonneau had been steering it. Charbonneau was not
an expert with boats, and he made a mistake with the rudder. Since
Charbonneau could not swim, he became very panicked as the boat
lurched onto its side and water started pouring in. One of the
other crewmembers helped get the situation under control, but not
before a lot of important material fell over the sides. This was
just one example of Charbonneau's many mistakes that were to plague
the expedition.
While her husband's panicking caused the problem, Sacajawea managed
to undo much of it with her calm manner. She had been sitting
in the stern of the boat, and instead of panicking after the boat
fell sideways, she rescued the items she could. Leaning out from
the boat to fish out books and tools, she practically saved the mission
single-handedly (the other hand was holding Jean Baptiste). So
far away from any cities, almost all of the supplies Sacajawea rescued
were irreplaceable. Clark was ecstatic, and praised her good sense
and competence in his journal. Lewis, although he never had the
same fondness for Sacajawea that Clark did, noted that she had saved
the day. Somewhat ironically, Charbonneau's wife, who had been
allowed to come along as a favor to the French-Canadian, now saved
the whole expedition from her husband's incompetence on the water.
Sacajawea also saved some of the captains' journals. Had these
not been recovered, the record of the early part of the trip (and
much of Sacajawea's life) might be lost to later historians.
Around the time of the boat incident, the expedition members were
starting to sense that they were near groups of Native Americans.
Sacajawea proved helpful again by identifying carefully hidden
signs of their presence and determining that they were not Shoshonis.
payment page
