With No Running Water the Stream was called Big Dry River

With No Running Water the Stream was called Big Dry River. Lewis and Clark at Big Dry River. As you look straight south across Fort Peck Lake, it doesn't make much sense that an area inundated with so much water could be called the Big Dry. Yet, in 1805 when Lewis and Clark named it, instead of an arm of the lake, the Big Dry was a tremendous, relatively dry riverbed. , The Big Dry was so impressive, Lewis and Clark thought it extended possibly as far southeast as the Black Hills. Unlike streams they were familiar with in the East which flow all year, an intermittent stream like the Big Dry was a curiosity to Lewis and Clark. , "Today we passed the bed of the most extraordinary river that I ever beheld. it is as a wide as the Missouri is at this place or ½ a mile wide and not containing a single drop of runing water; some small standing pools being all the water that could be perceived... This stream,,, we called Big dry river." Captain M. Lewis, Thursday, May 9, 1805 , "we saw a great quantity of game today particularly of Elk and Buffaloe, the latter are now so gentle that the men frequently throw sticks and stones at them in order to drive them out of the way. Captain M. Lewis, Thursday, May 9, 1805 , Scientific Discovery: the Willet (Catoptrophorus semipalmatus)) , "I killed four plover this evening of a different kind from any I have yet seen...the notes of this bird are louder and more various than of any other species of this family..." Captain M. Lewis, Thursday, May 9, 1805