1. Wortman Ranch, Big Sandy, MT - Lewis and Clark Campsite, home to the Blackfeet Treaty of 1855 - The Corps of Discovery awakened to stampeding buffalo the night they camped here. On May 28, 1805, Lewis wrote that his dog, Seaman, saved their lives. A reported 2,000 tipis and 15,000 Indians assembled here twice in the following 50 years, to negotiate treaties that transformed relations between the Blackfeet, Flathead, and Gros Ventres tribes, and between the tribes and the U.S. government. Several frontier-era forts and trading posts also were located here. The ranch operates a General Mercantile at Judith Landing. Take Judith Landing Road from Big Sandy 40 miles to the parking area by the Missouri River.  Riverfront trail by the boat ramp leads to the exhibit area.

2. Lanning-Terry Ranch, Big Sandy, MT - White Cliffs, Pilot Rock - Here, floaters on the Missouri River catch their first sight of the White Cliffs area that inspired Meriwether Lewis to write about “scenes of visionary enchantment.” The ranch house stands next to Pilot Rock, which steamboat captains depended on as one of their landmarks along the river. This ranch is still managed by members of the same family that homesteaded the land over 100 years ago. They also operate a riverfront horse-riding business that stops in historic areas and combines trips with a separate river-floating company. Located five miles upstream from the Bureau of Land Management’s Lewis and Clark Eagle Creek Campground, the interpretive display is accessible only to floaters through the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. The pull-out is on the north side of the river.

3. Prairie White Cliffs, Loma, MT - White Cliffs - Three miles of the Missouri’s famous White Cliffs lie within this ranch. High above the river, trained dogs help herd and guard sheep on the prairie. Accessible only to river floaters, the pullout is located on the south side of the river, downstream and opposite to Lewis and Clark Eagle Creek Campground.

4. ABN Ranch, Ft. Benton, MT - Coal Banks & Thompson Homestead - As area homesteads failed in the 1890s, one pioneer family survived, and today remains on the land producing wheat, barley, and cattle. On the south side of the river downstream from Coal Banks Landing, the ABN Ranch features an historic homestead, “coal banks” geology, and natural rangelands as well as farming. A small sign alerts floaters to the interpretive display, which is accessible only to floaters through the Missouri River Breaks National Monument. Pull-out and dock areas are on the south side of the river.

5. Ayshire Dairy Farm, Great Falls, MT - Upper Portage & White Bear Island Overlook - The Lewis and Clark Expedition spent a momentous month here in the summer of 1805, completing the portage at Great Falls, assembling Lewis’s famed, failed iron boat, and preparing to cross the Rocky Mountains. They fought off grizzly bears, hunted bison, and carried supplies naked through brutal hail storms, wrongly expecting that a quick route to the Pacific Ocean lay just a few ridges away. On July 4^th, they celebrated the nation’s 29^th birthday with the last of their grog. Located about eight minutes from Great Falls, the site is on the south side of 40^th Street, about 200 yards from 13^th street.

6. Sieben Ranch and Hilger Hereford Ranch, Wolf Creek, MT - The "Gates of the Mountains" - Meriwether Lewis named the Gates of the Rocky Mountains on July 19, 1805. Once grazed by roaming dinosaurs, and containing part of the north-south “Old North Trail” walked by humans more than 8,000 years ago, these ranches played a central role in the origins of agriculture in Montana, and continued to help define contemporary ranching. Located about 17 minutes north of Helena. The exhibit area is off I-15 at the Gates of the Mountains exit # 209 on the road leading to the boat docks at Holter Lake.

7. Beaverhead Gateway Ranch, Dillon, MT - Beaverhead Rock - When she saw Beaverhead Rock on August 7, 1805, Sacajawea knew she was back in her homeland. This brought long-awaited relief to captains Lewis and Clark because it meant they would soon meet Sacagawea’s tribe, the Shoshone, who could supply horses so the party could try to beat winter across the Rockies. For two decades of the late 1800s, virtually everyone traveling between Helena and the state’s territorial capitals, Bannack and Virginia City, passed by the point of Rocks Hotel and Stage Station that operated here. The display area is just south of Beaverhead Rock, on the west side of State Highway 141, about 15 miles north of Dillon.

8. Hamilton Ranch, Twin Bridges, MT - Big Hole Pass, Clark Camp - Down the road from Montana’s first Territorial Capital, Bannack, these landscapes still look as they did when Lewis and Clark walked through the area, replete with the same blue camas plants whose roots the explorers ate to survive. It was near here that the Corps of Discovery met up with the Shoshone, Sacagawea’s tribe. The “extremely fertile vally” Clark described became the original heartland of Montana ranching, initially sparked by the first gold discovery in 1862, less than 20 miles away. The display area is north of the crest of Big Hole Pass (Carroll Hill) on the west side of Highway 278.

9. Mission Ranch, Livingston, MT - Fort Parker, Original Crow Agency - Captain Clark and his group camped directly on the opposite side of the Yellowstone River on July 15, 1806, during their return trip to St. Louis. The ranch later became the site of Fort Parker, where the U.S. government based the first Crow Agency and sought unsuccessfully to convert the nomadic Crow tribe to an agricultural lifestyle. The Fort was a “Who’s Who” stopping-point for explorers and early settlers throughout the frontier era, including those whose travels helped persuade Congress to create nearby Yellowstone National Park in 1872. The display area is about 10 miles east of Livingston, off the Mission Creek exit and about 150 yards south on a county road. 

10. Prairie County Grazing District, Terry, MT - Clark Camp across Yellowstone, July 30, 1806 - This area is steeped in history including the “Old West” Calypso Trail, the natural arches and other wonders of the Terry Badlands Wilderness Study Area, 1806 campsite of Captain Clark and the 1876 site where General Custer’s 7^th Cavalry camped before confronting Sitting Bull at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. From Interstate 94, take exit #169 and go one-half mile north to Highway 10; turn east and find the exhibits after 0.3 miles, on the north side of the road. The exhibit, surrounding six old graves, is seven miles west of Terry on the Frontage Road (Highway 10).

***Undaunted Stewardship also has an interpretive display in Fort Benton (star with no number on map above) at the BLM Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument Interpretive Center. In the 25 years following the first gold discoveries in western Montana, before railroads arrived in 1887, hundreds of steamboats brought hoards of wealth-seekers and their supplies from St. Louis to Fort Benton.  Most of the boats eventually sank or were destroyed in the turbulent, hazard-filled waters. One world traveler of the era called the trip against the current of Missouri more frightening than sailing the high steams during a wild storm.