‘Thunder Canoe’

Early History of Steam Navigation on Western Rivers; What the Indians Thought of the First Steamboat on the Upper Missouri; Voyage of the “Yellowstone”; Fate of the Assiniboine”; The “Chippewa” was First to Reach Fort Benton

by Dan R. Conway

(First appeared in the Hysham Echo on March 31, 1927)

Looking across the great Missouri valley in North Dakota, one early autumn day, a few years ago, I could see the beautiful squares of green alfalfa, the fields of golden-hued, ripening corn, the hillsides covered with buffalo grass, turning brown in the warmth of the fall sunshine. The leaves on the belt of timber that fringed the “Big Muddy” were taking on the various hues of beauty, so admired by the artist and extolled by the poet, that come with Indian summer. Lowing cattle were wending their way along deeply worn paths that led to pastures, and pigs in the alfalfa were calling loudly for their morning rations. What a beautiful pastoral picture! Turning toward the rising sun, I could see in its beautiful setting along the banks of Muddy creek, the city of Williston with its church spires, its schools, its banks and stores, mill, creamery and railroad depot and yards; in fact, all that goes to make up a commercial emporium.

What a splendid picture of civilization these scenes made! Then, as my eye followed the windings of the Missouri’s yellow torrent, my thoughts traveled back across almost one hundred years, that have passed, to the time when the plow had not turned a furrow in that part of the country. I could see in these same plains and these hills of Dakota, God’s great park - a panorama surpassing anything that art or wealth of man has made. My mental picture of this vast upper Missouri river country in its primeval condition is, to me, the most beautiful and interesting of all on earth, especially that portion of the plains from what is now Fort Benton, Montana, to the central Dakotas.

One Hundred Years Ago

Here was a land of timbered rivers, streams of water fed by springs and Rocky Mountain glaciers, broad valleys, rolling hills covered with luxuriant buffalo grass, sandstone cliffs sculptured by nature in the form of ruined castles; monoliths; cyclopean walls and myriad colored canyons.

A century ago, over this entrancing land roamed countless numbers of bison, elk, antelope and deer. Along the timbered streams, colonies of beavers built their dams and sported undisturbed at the water’s edge. Glossy black turkeys were as common as the chickens that today flock the farm yard. Eagles soared aloft; and prairie chickens, sage hens and an occasional covey of grouse whirred past. Otter, lynx and lion; badgers and prairie dogs; and everywhere the big gray wolves and musical coyotes, subsisting on the weaker things. On every side was animal life with no one to disturb the harmony of nature except the occasional band of nomadic Indian tribesman of the wilderness, who claimed the country as their own from the time when man first inhabited the earth. Nature here supplied all things their needs required, free to all alike. Such is my picture of the upper Missouri river valley as it was when the free trappers, the traders and the mountainmen found it a century or more ago.

The “Big Thunder Canoe”

Along this great river sounds a whistle, its message borne on the breeze, its musical notes reflected by the hills. A mighty moment is transpiring and its story is to go down in emboldened letters on the pages of American history. Romance has clasped hands with commerce and the first great step in the transformation of the wilderness has been taken. The steamer “Yellowstone” is drawing close to her destination at Fort Union.

Just what effect this accomplishment of the white aggressors had upon the native populace is difficult of our comprehension. With the aid of history, however, we can readily imagine the emotions wrought in the minds of these aborigines so naturally superstitious. Catlin very ably describes these emotions as follows: “If anything did ever literally astonish (and astound) the natives, it was the appearance of our steamer, puffing, and blowing, and paddling, and rushing by their villages, which were on the banks of the river. These poor and ignorant people, for the distance of two thousand miles, had never before seen or heard of a steamboat, and in some places they seemed at a loss to know what to do or how to act; they could not, as the Dutch did at Newburgh on the Hudson River, take it to be a ‘floating saw-mill,’ and they had no name for it; so it was like everything else (with them) which is mysterious and unaccountable, called ‘medicine’ (mystery). We had on board one twelve-pound cannon and three or four eight-pound swivels, which we were taking up to arm the Fur Company’s fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone; and at the approach to every village they were all discharged several times in rapid succession, which threw the inhabitants into utter confusion and amazement.

“Some of them laid their faces to the ground, and cried to the Great Spirit; some shot their horses and digs, and sacrificed them to appease the Great Spirit, whom they conceived was offended; some deserted their villages, and ran to the opt of the bluff some miles distant; and other, in some places, as the boat landed in front of their villages, came with great caution and peeped over the bank to see the fate of their chiefs, whose duty it was (from the nature of their office) to approach us, whether friends or foes, and to go on board. Sometimes in this plight, they were instantly thrown, neck and heels, over each other’s heads and shoulders - men, women and children, and dogs, sage, sachem, old and young - all in a mass, at the frightful discharge of the steam from the escape pipe, which the captain of the boat let loose upon them for his own fun and amusement. There were many curious conjectures among their wise men with regard to the nature and powers of the steamboat.

Among the Mandans some called it the ‘big thunder canoe,’ for some distance below the village they ‘saw lightening flash from its sides, and heard the thunder roll from its big pipe.’ Others called it the ‘big medicine canoe with eyes.’ It was ‘medicine’ or mystery, because they could not understand it; and it must have eyes, said they, for it sees its own way and takes the deep water in the middle of the channel. They had no idea of the boat being steered by ‘the man in the glass house at the top of the boat.’”

Need of Transportation

One hundred and twenty-five years ago, when America was young, the people of America lived close to the Atlantic seaboard, and the frontiers were but a stone’s throw to the westward. Western travel and development were delayed because of lack of efficient transportation facilities. Print this post