Arrangements had been made for us to meet with Butch Bouveier who has built most of the full size keel boats and pirouges that are displayed in Lewis and Clark museums. He is the foremost authority on how they were built (though he is first to admit no one knows absolutely for sure). In fact, he has now written a book, "Brown Water," that will be available shortly sharing the knowledge he has acquired in his thirty years of research. He spent well over an hour sharing information about the construction of the boat and then made himself available for lots of personal question time. Our friends Frank and Bette along with another member of our caravan can be seen here chatting with him.
Inside the building are full size replicas of a keel boat, two pirouges, a dug out canoe, and the frame designed by Meriwether Lewis that could be put together when it was needed and then covered with animal skins. (unfortunately it didn't work because they didn't have access to the right materials for caulking- there were no trees to provide the resin they expected)
Outside there was another full size keel boat in the water that we were able to get in and get a real sense of its size. We had fun peering in the windows of the small cabin and climbing up by the sweep, and checking out the hinged bins.
In the display area of the center they had a sample of this round canoe that can be covered with a bear skin that was used by the Native Americans.
It was an especially fascinating couple of hours and an example of what makes these Winnebago Adventure Caravans so wonderful. They can give us opportunities like this that the normal tourist won't have.
We were all in to the campground by dinner time and thrilled to see sunshine and then this wonderful evening sky with a promise of no rain tomorrow.
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