Iron Boat (2)
Two years and three thousand miles later, the Corps of Discovery had reached the Great Falls of the Missouri River where they found that the portage around this natural wonder would be a rigorous and roundabout route of just over eighteen miles. 
It would take eleven days and require five trips to move all their gear. The keelboat had made it as far as Fort Mandan where it was turned around and sent back to St. Louis. At the Great Falls they would have to leave the pirogues and canoes behind also, cached in a buried pit, where they could recover them on their return from the Pacific. Lewis went on ahead with a crew for boatbuilding, intent on assembling his new iron canoe for the first time. The rest of the men made up the portage detail. He was equally intent that the task be completed by the time the portage crew had completed theirs.
Plagued by mosquitoes, the work commenced. Wood was collected and cross braces built. Hides were harvested, softened in the river and sewn together. The resulting skin was wrapped around the ribs of the iron frame and left out in the blazing sun to shrink and dry into the body of the canoe for which it was intended. A good coating of pitch-tar would waterproof the vessel, and the Corps would continue its westward journey. Much labor had gone into the entire enterprise, and the iron frame had been carried by boat and foot many a mile before the awful truth became apparent. There were no resinous trees to be found anywhere in that part of the wilderness, and without, there could be no pitch-tar and no waterproof vessel. Undaunted, Lewis improvised with a combination of tallow, charcoal and beeswax. All to know avail, however, as his journal entry indicates, the canoe took on water within hours of its being set afloat .
The End