I don't know about you, but I've often wondered what it would be like to see the American

West as it once was. No highways or fences, no power lines, or cities, or railroads. No airplanes

flying overhead, just a pure wilderness, completely untouched by modern man. And in the spring of

1805, that's pretty much exactly how the Corps of Discovery found it.

A land teeming with games so gentle and abundant, the Captain Meriwether Lewis reckoned it'd take no more than two good hunters to feed a regiment.

And on that account, he was most likely correct.

After leaving the Mandan villages back in early April, the expedition had followed the Missouri into present-day Montana and found themselves knee-deep in a hunter's paradise.

Buffalo, antelope, and deer were all there for the taken, and they dined upon them all.

Hell, the buffalo were so numerous that the explorers would often have to chase them out of camp.

Per Captain Lewis, quote,

We can send out at any time and obtain whatever species of meat the country affords in as large a

quantity as we wish.

End quote.

To supplement this carnivore diet, they also partook of berries, wild licorice, and a type of

root affectionately known as the Indian turnip, all of which were

identified and collected by young Sakajua, in addition to whatever other useful herbs or

medicinal-type plants she happened upon as she walked the banks of the Missouri. Ah, but it wasn't

all sunshine and rainbows, although the core of Discovery was able to cross the entirety of the

Great Plains, without crossing the path of a roving war party, the same could not be said when it

came to grizzly bears. They were first warned of these ferocious beasts from the Mandan,

who told them that they didn't go hunting bear unless they had a party of eight or ten men,

and even then, they painted themselves

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