Lewis & Clark Trip Day 21: Great Falls, MT II (5/28/2021)

Friday, May 28, 2021 (continued)

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (1998) in Great Falls, MT

The Bison Branch (2005, by Ron Ukrainetz)

Amazing diorama of portaging one
of the dugout canoes

We knew about earth lodges and we knew
about bull boats, but now we learned
they stored the bull boat on top of the
earth lodge where they shielded
the smoke hole from wind 

This time the "heartskin" or membrane around
a bison heart is used as a watertight container

Neotoma cinerea/Bushy-tailed Woodrat or Pack Rat
was "discovered" by Lewis and Clark

The Corps of Discovery cache looks like
those earth lodge caches, but besides food,
theirs had ammunition, tools, cooking
paraphernalia, beaver and bear skins,
buffalo robes, and animal horns

The Explorers at Giant Springs (1998, by Bob Scriver)
combines the figures from the sculptures at Fort Benton and
Great Falls; what! ... there's a sculpture in Great Falls?!

Ha, ha! Lewis left a note for Clark on a
freshly cut pole telling him to take the left fork;
a beaver took the already cut pole along with
the note, sending Clark up the wrong fork

*On 6/18/1805, William Clark described the largest spring he had ever seen, and on 6/29/1805, Meriwether Lewis and George Drouillard hiked over to see it.*

Giant Springs State Park: the Roe River is
listed in the Guinness Book of World Records
as the shortest river in the world, 
varying from 58 to 200 feet in length

The Roe River carries clear spring water to the Missouri,
where it can stay separate for up to a mile

Giant Springs is right next to the Missouri River and much of
the 54-degree water overflows directly into the river

You can see the water bubbling up
at different places

*On 6/14/1805, while exploring the area around the portage, Lewis and Clark named one of the cascades as "Handsome Falls."*

Rainbow Dam (1908-1910) stands above
what is now called Rainbow Falls

And despite so little water flowing over the falls,
there is a rainbow!

1999: View of Rainbow Dam and Falls

Farther downstream is Crooked Falls, without a dam!

We had heard about the Sip 'n' Dip Lounge, a
second floor bar that overlooks the pool at the motor inn,
but today the view of the pool is blocked

So instead we had dinner at the Clark & Lewie's,
the restaurant at the O'Haire Motor Inn

Next: Lewis & Clark Trip Day 22.