Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Daily Dilemma #4
May 14, 1805
Several of your men in the rear canoes discover a large brown bear [grizzly] lying in the open ground a
short distance from the river bank. Six of your best hunters decide to kill the bear. They manage to get
within 40 paces of the bear without being heard. Then, each of them fires at it! Instantly, the bear rises
up and charges your men. Two of them make it to a canoe; the others hide in the willows. The bear
continues to follow two of your men who jump into the river, even though they face a twenty foot drop
into the river. The bear is so enraged that he follows the men into the river. Luckily, the two men who
remain on shore are able to reload their weapons. They shoot the bear in the head. After your men drag
the bear on shore, they discover the bear took eight shots before he was killed. Today’s drama does not
stop there!
Back on the river, the pirogues are under sail and cruising along when a sudden squall of wind strikes!
Unfortunately, Charbonneau is at the helm of one of the pirogues—the white canoe. He cannot swim,
and is a very timid waterman. Both co-captains are on shore opposite the pirogue, too far away to be
heard even if you could yell directions to the out-of-control pirogue.
Instead of turning the rudder into the wind, which is what most good sailors would have known to do,
Charbonneau began shouting for God’s mercy. The pirogue fills with water and important articles such
as your journals, maps, and instruments begin floating away! Sacagawea and Cruzatte (the bowsman )
along with other Corps members on board this pirogue begin to take action, but this is happening very
quickly.
Your instinct is to jump in the river and try to save what you can. Should you follow your instinct?
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This is what we discussed. Maggie said that we should not because it's dangerous to swim. Andrea pointed out that the current is to fast to get to the things in time. Andrea also said that it is not worth risking our lives. I also think so to.So we decided not to go after our stuff. Lewis and Clark
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ReplyDeleteUnfortunately when the event happened Lewis and Clark were too far away to reach Charbonneau. They did not risk their lives for their stuff. They yelled and signaled but they could not get Charbonneau's attention. Sacajawea collected a chunk of their stuff.
ReplyDeleteWe decided not to risk our lives for our stuff. We thought the current was too strong and we might not be very good swimmers. WE did not want to risk the lives of our men. We can replace supplies, but not lives.
Lewis and Clark and our corp made the same decision. We can guess that it was for the same reasons. We and they can rewrite\remap our journals. One contrast is that we probably will not try to get Charbonneau's attention, because we know he can not hear us.
The way our core discussed the problem was: I said "probably we shouldn't risk our lives" Christian said "I agree!!!!" I said "because we could not stand a 20 foot drop" "welllllll" Christian said. He brought me over to the board. "You see, we already passed it." "Oh" I said. I really disagreed.
Corp 4 decided not to try to rescue our stuff. This is what we discussed. Maggie said that we should not jump into the river because it's dangerous to swim. Andrea pointed out that the current is to fast to get to the things in time. Andrea also said that it is not worth risking our lives. I think so to. So we decided not to go after our stuff.
ReplyDeleteLewis and Clark did not jump into the river to retrieve their things.This is a direct quote from captain Lewis's journal. "I for a moment forgot my own situation, and involluntarily droped my gun, threw aside my shot pouch and was in the act of unbuttoning my coat, before I recollected the folly of the attempt I was about to make, which was to throw myself into the river and indevour to swim to the perogue; the perogue was three hundred yard distant the waves so high that a perogue could scarcely live in any situation, the water excessively could, and the stream rappid; had I undertaken this project therefore, there was a hundred to one but what I should have paid the forfit of my life for the madness of my project, but this had the perogue been lost, I should have valued but little." We got this from this site, http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/read/?_xmlsrc=1805-05-14.xml. At 2:40 on the 13th day of the 12 month of the year 2012. Lewis himself wrote this on Tuesday May 14th 1805.
We decide not to try to rescue our stuff. They did to. They decided because they did not think it was worth risking their lives for. Just like us. They had the same reasons we had.