I still have problems with the claim Sacajawea received any credit for "Guiding the Expedition"......How can one guide where they have never been?
I have extricated this from 'Wikipedia':
Sacagawea was born into an Agaidika (Salmon Eater) tribe of Lemhi Shoshone between Kenney Creek and Agency Creek about twenty minutes away from present-day Salmon
in Lemhi County, Idaho. In 1800, when she was about twelve, she was kidnapped by a group of Minnetarees.
She was taken as a captive to a Hidatsa village near present-day
Washburn, North Dakota. At about thirteen years of age, Sacagawea was taken as a wife by Toussaint Charbonneau, a Quebecer trapper living in the village. He was reported to have purchased, or won Sacagawea while gambling.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrived near the Hidatsa villages to spend the winter of 1804-1805. They interviewed several trappers who might be able to
interpret and guide the expedition up the Missouri River in the springtime. They agreed to hire Charbonneau as an interpreter when they discovered his wife spoke Shoshone, as they knew they would need the help of Shoshone tribes at the headwaters of the Missouri.
In April 1804, the expedition left Fort Mandan and headed up the Missouri River in pirogues. They had to be poled against the current and sometimes pulled from the riverbanks. On May 14, 1805, Sacagawea rescued items that had fallen out of a capsized boat, including the journals and records of Lewis and Clark. By August 1805, the corps had located a Shoshone tribe and discovered that the tribe's chief was Scajawea's brother Cameahwait. The Shoshone agreed to barter horses to the group, and help them over the cold and barren Rocky Mountains. The trip was so hard that they were reduced to eating tallow candles to survive, Sacagawea helped to find and cook camas roots to help them regain their strength.
As the expedition approached the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast, Sacagawea gave up her beaded belt to enable the captains to trade for a fur robe they wished to give to President Thomas Jefferson.
Clark's journal entry for November 20, 1805 reads: When the corps reached the Pacific Ocean, members of the expedition—including Sacagawea— voted on November 24 vote on the location for building their winter fort. In January, when a whale's carcass washed up onto the beach south of Fort Clatsop, Sacagawea insisted on her right to go see this "monstrous fish".
On the return trip, as they approached the Rocky Mountains, Clark recorded "The Indian woman informed me that
she had been in this plain frequently and knew it well....
She said we would discover a gap in the mountains in our direction..." which is now
Gibbons Pass. A week later, on July 13,
Sacagawea advised Clark to cross into the Yellowstone River basin at what is now known as Bozeman Pass. This was later chosen as the optimal route for the Northern Pacific Railway to cross the continental divide.
This may change your mind on the subject.
