NEBRASKA CITY – Butch Bouvier is leading construction of what his crew calls the Wood River Fort Annex with the idea that Americans should know what it took  for the Lewis & Clark Expedition to travel up the Missouri River and cross on foot the largely unexplored territory. He said the expedition did its bit in building America and today’s builders are learning similar lessons.

It’s not just cutting the 200 trees needed for an 80 foot by 80-foot fort containing five  buildings or the strain on machines and men to load the timber from the Missouri River flood plain and deliver it to the high ground at the Lewis & Clark center at Nebraska City.

 

Bovier said it’s not just about dealing with subzero temperatures, cutting logs, laying them up and daubing the empty spaces to provide shelter. For Bouvier, building a fort of a cottonwood grove that was killed by the flood of 2019 is like building a country -- it takes cooperation.

Bouvier: “We’re fledglings. We need to learn how to get through the tough spots and we’re in one right now. We’ll get through it. It will work out. We need to learn how to work together. …

Bouvier says his next “big birthday” is 80 years, the last half of which he has gained notoriety as a historic reconstructionist. He built the keel boat that has greeted thousands to the Lewis and Clark center every year and repaired numerous historic log cabins. This is his first cabin to be built from scratch and the first fort, but the formula is familiar.

Bouvier: “The comradery is what counts. What do you take away? Well, the people that come in and want to know about this and they say ‘well, this is all they had, this is what they stayed in all winter?’  Yeah. ‘Well, why did they do that?’  So  you could have a country to live in eventually, that’s why they did it. “

 

What took dozens of men under Lewis & Clark’s command 17 days to do, Bouvier and his crew will work for two years. In 1804, the idea was for a temporary shelter to get the expedition underway, but this winter’s task is for a permanent educational opportunity.

Fichter: “We’re making a fort to make it look like it was hastily built, but we want it to last, you know 20 to 30  years.”

Isaac and his older brother Sterling Fichter,  a fur-trade historian and mountain man re-enactor,  helped Bouvier build the keel boat and are providing much of the construction labor for the current project. Center Director Doug Friedli is also on the crew.

 

Friedli: “I’m very tired, but it’s a good tired. I’m not used to lifting  heavy things all day long, but it’s been a pleasure and it’s been an experience. Just the comradery, similar to what Lewis & Clark had with their crew. After three years they were just so close together and became comrades. That’s the feeling I’m getting as we are working on this.”

Bouvier: “The difficult thing is sharing the information and keeping the team together. Keeping the team together and getting the job done. You see this dinner table here. At lunchtime we sit down around this and we talk, just like a family.”

He hopes for many more conversations among re-enactors and visitors and builders of America.

Friedli: “This is an educational opportunity. It’ s hands on. It’s stepping back into time. … We are going to sit down beside the fireplace and talk about what life was like 200 years ago.”

It is a replica of the first of three forts built by the expedition. Journals include crude drawings of Camp Dubois in Illinois that was a recruitment and training center for the military and an 1804 starting point for the expedition.

Bouvier is confident  the expedition used mud to daub the spaces between the logs, but the current project is using a colorized concrete mixture of Bouvier’s invention.

 

 

Friedli talked about the opportunity to have Bouvier lead the construction.

 

Friedli: “One word, priceless. I can’t think of another individual who would have tackled this, at  his age, with his experience, with his multiple skills and historical perspective and passing for telling history. That’s priceless.”

Keith Fankhauser began by volunteering to help load the logs, which were cut as a training exercise for a disaster recovery team, and ended up building with Bovier.

Fankhauser: “It’s interesting. I like it. It’s only my third day I’ve actually helped on the building.”

The center hopes to have its new exhibit available to the public by the end of the summer.