The area featured in X Mark s the Spot #8 was well known to the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, many of whom were moved to comment in their journals on its beauty. Meriwether Lewis had the following to say about this remote corner of North Dakota which, visually at least, has changed little since the Corps of Discovery arrived there 200 years ago. (The names of the rivers have been removed for reasons that will become clear below.)

" I ascended the hills from whence I had a most pleasing view of the country, particularly the wide and fertile vallies formed by the ... and ... rivers, which occasionally unmasked by the wood on their borders disclose their meanderings for many miles in their passage through these delightful tracts of country. " Meriwether Lewis, April 25, 1805