Buffalo and Elk on the Upper Missouri

Description

Maximilian and his party set out from Fort McKenzie on the morning of September 14, passing into the region of the Stone Walls again the next day. Beyond Citadel Rock on September 16, they reached the mouth of the Judith River on the afternoon of the following day. On September 18 large herds of bison were sighted in the Mauvaises Terres. Maximilian reported in his journal for this day, "Buffalo were moving today, like last night, along Dauphin's Rapid, on both banks ... . We saw whitish-gray bighorns standing on the mountains, and a herd of twelve elk with a powerful stag trotting before us through the river." Bodmer's watercolor of buffalo and elk descending the bluffs to the river's edge corresponds closely to Maximilian's written description. The scene was reproduced as Tableau 47 in the aquatint atlas.