After traveling 168 days and 1,600 miles, the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived near the Knife River Villages in 1804. Captain William Clark wrote on October 27, 1804, of coming to a village on the left side, situated on an eminence about 50 feet above the water on a handsome plain, containing 40 or 50 houses in a kind of picket work. He described the houses as round and very large, holding several families as well as their horses, which were tied on one side of the entrance. On their return from the Pacific Ocean in 1806, the expedition spent three days there counseling with tribal leaders. On August 14, 1806, when they were opposite the Minetares Grand Village, also called Big Hidatsa Village, they saw a number of Native people watching them, fired the blunderbusses several times, and soon came to a crowd of people on the bank opposite the village of the Shoe Indians or Mah-har-has, identified as Amahami Village, where Clark saw the principal chief of the Little Village, identified as Sakakawea Village, and the principal chief of the Mah-har-has; he wrote that the people were extremely pleased to see them. On August 17, 1806, the expedition also took leave of T. Chabono, his Snake Indian wife Sakakawea, and their child, who had accompanied the party on its route to the Pacific Ocean as interpreter and interpreters.