By the end of March, 1805 the river was free of ice. Lewis & Clark sent a small group of men back to St. Louis with the big keelboat loaded with materials for President Jefferson. This included maps, reports about the Indian tribes in the Louisiana territory, prospects for trade, and a box of specimens of soil & minerals samples, plants, insects, corn, tobacco, buffalo robes, and wooden cages with a live sharp-tailed grouse, four magpies and a prairie dog.
