August 9, 2017

We headed north east to Brown Lake with our pontoon boats. Happily, mine has its replacement pontoons and is water worthy again. It was about an hour and a half drive. We stopped at a little town called Ovando on the way. Its pretty small (50 residents) but its claim to fame is that its where Lewis and Clark split up for awhile and went their own way.

“Lewis was the first white explorer to visit the area of what has come to be known as the Blackfoot River Valley. On his return trip from the Pacific Coast, minus William Clark, on July 6, 1806, he camped near Ovando at the confluence of the Big Blackfoot River and a creek, accompanied by nine mounted soldiers, 17 horses, and his Newfoundland dog, Seaman. Lewis named that creek Seaman’s Creek after his dog. Today Seaman’s Creek is called Monture Creek, named after George Monture, an early day U.S. Army scout. Lewis described this part of the valley as “prairie of the knobs” because of the mounds along the trails, some of which can still be seen today. These knobs are souvenirs of the Ice Ages.”

Brown Lake isn’t very big and is out in the open with cows grazing on its shores and a whole lot of private property surrounding it. It isn’t very deep but we saw a few fish rising. We were only there for a few hours but it was mid-day and not the best time for catching. So we headed home and called it a day.