2 January: In the morning, clear sky, cold. At eight o’clock, −25°F [−31.7°C]. It was terribly cold in our room. Until the fire [was started and] burning, we could hardly stand it. I wanted to write, but the ink had frozen into a lump. The moderately strong wind was from the northwest. Today all the Indians wanted to go buffalo hunting. The buffalo herds were supposed to be no farther than an hour from the last Hidatsa village. This news came from the Hidatsas via an engagé sent from there, who had frozen his face; [we also learned] that Kipp would stay with Bijou in that village, waiting for milder weather for his trip.

He and almost all his people had frozen some part of their bodies. Eight dogs had run away; therefore, others had to be gotten. Mr. Kipp had sent two people to look for the lost dogs in the villages. Hugron, one of [Kipp’s] people for whom it became too cold, had unhitched his dogs on the middle of the ice on the Missouri, left the sled with the merchandise, and gone to the next Indian village. Later on, the Mandans found the sled. Two other people, who could not find night quarters, remained behind and had to sleep in that terrible weather on the prairie, where they, too, froze some parts [of their bodies]. We still had no meat today, even though the Mandans often carried some past the fort. Medicine Bird (Mandeck-Suck-Choppeníh) and Síh-Sä were the only Indians in the fort. Our wood haulers wore masks on their faces, made from woolen material. Our shoes and boots were frozen solid in the room; we could not put them on. Below the fort, the river was frozen solid. Charbonneau's wife, an Arikara, gave birth yesterday in the lower village. Today she came to the fort, [a journey of] one and a half hours on foot, in that severe cold, [with] her child on her back. In the afternoon, twelve thirty, −16°F [−26.7°C], northwest wind. The Indians who came into the fort looked strange—even their eyelashes were white, encrusted with ice. [The] night [was] stormy and very cold.