Calmer weather allowed the party to forage and hunt as well as to mend the damaged canoe. Hunters were able to bring in “3 deer, 8 brants and 12 ducks.” (Gass)

Standing on the shore of the Columbia River today, one is near the original site from which the men in this camp went hunting. No one has ever located any of the brands or marks made by Captain Lewis with his branding iron, Captain Clark or any of the men in the “trees about our Camp.” (Clark) The journals identify these trees as beech and alder, both of which are plentiful in the area.

Had the party reached the northern tip of the Long Beach Peninsula, they would have been in what is now Leadbetter State Park, a nesting ground for Western Snowy Plovers and home to hundreds of species of migratory birds. The Willapa National Wildlife Refuge currently manages 13,600 acres, in addition to the Park, which support wintering bird populations in the region.

Lewis & Clark’s troop of adventuresome travelers would have missed the major winter migration in the area, since it is essentially over by the end of October. Had they arrived in the area one month earlier, they most likely would have seen some of the 27 kinds of shorebirds & the 23 types of waterfowl usually found there. They might also have seen Caspian Terns and Brown Pelicans beginning their outmigration.

In 1998, wildlife biologists counted the following on one single October day in the Refuge area: 12,304 American Widgeon (with white patches between the eyes), 912 Cormorant, 145 Bufflehead, 22 blue-winged Cinnamon Teal, 5 Oldsquaw (white feathered), 4 Black Scoter, 1 Trumpeter Swan, 1 ring-tailed Hawk, 1 Goldeneye Duck and 1 Northern Harrier.

With the onset of the winter season – around mid-November, Trumpeter Swans also appear in the Peninsula’s small lakes where they spend two months before continuing their migration.