On July 15, 1806, Captain William Clark and members of his party spent their first night on the Yellowstone River, three miles below the mouth of the Shields River. Still on horseback, they passed this area while searching for trees large enough to make dugout canoes and continued down the Yellowstone for another 80 miles before finding larger cottonwood trees suitable for canoes near present day Park City, Montana. Clark frequently described the Yellowstone River's numerous islands, nearby buffalo roads, and the beaver and their dams across the river's tributaries. As the party traveled east, great herds of buffalo became more numerous, and they also saw wolves, bighorn sheep, and many species of birds still found along the Yellowstone today.