Clark also took note of the Chinooks who followed Captain Lewis as he returned from his venture north. In the day’s journal entry, he observed that
“This Chin nook Nation is about 400 Souls [who] inhabid the Countrey on the Small rivrs which run into the bay below us and on the Ponds to the NW of us, live principally on fish and roots, they are well armed with fusees and Sometimes kill Elk Deer and fowl.”
That evening, a party arrived whom Clark described as “the principal Chief of the Chin nooks and his familey.”
It is worth noting that Clark’s estimate of the number of persons comprising the Chinook nation would have been a very conservative number, affected by the fact that, it now being past the summer season, the natives who dwelled in the region would have moved to winter quarters, leaving such villages as that located at what is now known as Station Camp, deserted.
