We Proceeded On

ln May 1804, Capts. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off from winter camp near St. Louis with their party of men—dubbed the Corps of Discovery by President Thomas Jefferson—on an epic journey to the Pacific Ocean.

ln May 1804, Capts. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off from winter camp near St. Louis with their party of men—dubbed the Corps of Discovery by President Thomas Jefferson—on an epic journey to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition’s mission was to follow the Missouri River to its source and explore the interior of the rapidly growing nation, which a year earlier had doubled in size with the purchase of the Louisiana Territory.

My family and I climbed with difficulty more than 800 feet up a short stretch of Lolo Trail along the Idaho-Montana border, uneasily eyeing the steep drop-off through the forest to our left as we imagined the hungry and exhausted Corps of Discovery struggling through snow at the same spot. A slight misstep could—and did—send their horses tumbling into a ravine, a thought that crossed our minds even in the July sunshine. As we reached a clearing, a spectacular vista of the Bitterroot Range opened before our eyes, stunning even my talkative young son into silence.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark walked this path to the Pacific Ocean.

That knowledge was as breathtaking as the view—still so like the untouched wilderness that Lewis and Clark witnessed two centuries earlier. “Finally, we understand a little bit of what they faced,” I said to my husband, Chris, son Colin and daughter Hannah.

West to the Pacific

For 200 years, the heroic journey of Lewis and Clark through an unknown wilderness has captured the imagination of Americans. Generations admired their heroism, stubborn determination, and incredible luck, all diligently recorded in journals detailing the dangers and discoveries of the more than 8,000-mile roundtrip journey across the continent.

“You cannot get a good, true sense of what the wilderness of the Northern Rockies was like—what it must have been like to be out here with no modern conveniences, no information, no communication with anyone from back East—without making the journey,’’ says Tom Griffith of Boiling Springs, N.C. Last year, he and his wife, Sarah, set out on April 15 in their RV and arrived at Fort Clatsop National Memorial in Oregon in July.

“When we got to Fort Canby (Ilwaco, Wash.) and could see the ocean,” he says, “I had such a great feeling of accomplishment, such a sense that we had done something. We had gotten here.”

In his journal, Clark expressed similar feelings on Nov. 7, 1805: “Great joy in camp. We are in view of the ocean, this great Pacific Ocean which we have been long anxious to see . . .”

As the Corps of Discovery’s bicentennial began in 2003, my family retraced much of the two-year, four-month, and nine-day trek through the present-day states of Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington. We added Wyoming on our return trip, because John Colter, a member of the expedition, left the Corps on its return trip to explore what is now Yellowstone National Park.

We hoped to recapture a sense of their adventure with our own 28-day odyssey (one day for every month they were gone). Like other “Lewis and Clarkers” we met, we were fascinated with their determination in the face of adversity and the amazingly peaceful nature of the military expedition—just one member of the Corps and at least one Blackfeet Indian died.

Our reward was discovering the country from St. Louis, Mo., to Fort Clatsop, near present-day Astoria, Ore. We saw bison, pronghorn, and prairie dogs, hiked through grasslands and old growth forest, climbed into replicas of the expedition’s keelboat and pirogues (flat-bottom canoes), swam in a crystal clear river in the Columbia River Gorge, and waded in the Missouri at the Headwaters State Park in Montana. Finally, like Clark, we thrilled to the sight of the Pacific Ocean.

The explorers made fine companions. Their journals bracketed our experiences with such gems as Lewis’ poetic description of the Great Falls of the Missouri and Clark’s steady refrain of “We proceeded on,’’ no matter the hardship. Scientific discoveries and heroic feats aside, the members of the expedition loved the wilderness and reveled in the joy of hiking the banks of the Missouri River and the wonder of bison. “Having for many days confined myself to the boat, I am determined to devote this day to amusing myself on shore with my gun,’’ Lewis wrote in his Sept. 17, 1804 entry.

Those who tread their path will find rivers have been dammed and towns built over many campsites. But the anniversary has inspired the rescue or restoration of many sites along the trail—a restored grassland around the Spirit Mound at Vermillion, S.D., is one—as well as generating a host of grassroots events. Bicentennial events include historic re-enactments, one major traveling exhibition of expedition artifacts, and a series of marvelous interpretive centers that recount the epic journey.

“I have been astounded at the number of people who are following Lewis and Clark’s path,’’ David Borlaug says. Some 35 million people are expected to travel part of the route during the bicentennial.

Borlaug, president of the North Dakota Lewis and Clark Foundation, works at the Lewis & Clark Interpretative Center in Washburn, N.D. Nearby, Fort Mandan boasts an excellent reconstruction of the winter quarters near the Knife River Indian Villages. Here, they met Sacagawea (pronounced and spelled different ways depending on which Indian tribe you ask), a Shoshone woman captured by the Hidatsa in a raid. The Corps hired her husband, Touissant Charbonneau, as an interpreter. But it was her services as an interpreter and sometime-guide that were crucial to the success of the journey many times over, most notably when the Corps, in desperate need of horses to cross the Rockies, finally found the Shoshone. In an unbelievable coincidence, she recognized the chief, Cameahwait, as her brother, ensuring they would get the vital horses.

A modern traveler armed with a guidebook, imagination, and the journals can recapture the sense of adventure whether traveling by bike, river, highway, or on foot. Transportation shapes the trip, because much of the wild and scenic Upper Missouri is inaccessible by automobile, but even where the landscape has changed, nearby parks or wildlife areas offer glimpses of what members of the expedition saw.

And like the Indians they met, the people who live along the trail are a discovery, too.

“I’ve learned how incredibly diverse our country is,’’ John Stephenson says. The 65-year-old from Carbondale, Colo., was biking the trail from Missouri to Oregon. “There are some awfully nice people out there in America. They’ve fed me, welcomed me into their homes, invited me to spend the night. I’ve been amazed.’’

Re-enactors such as the Lewis and Clark Honor Guard, who have portrayed the Corps for 15 years, can transport their audience back in time, too. Walt Walker, who plays Sgt. Patrick Gass, was among those conducting demonstrations at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls, Mont., on a Sunday in July. Walker says there is much to admire about the individuals who completed the journey two centuries ago.

“They embody personal integrity, flexibility, and the spirit of exploration that is America,” he says. “They went there, they came back, and they kept really good records.’’

American Indians along the way hope the anniversary will remind the nation of the value of their culture and the important role the various tribes played in aiding the Corps. From the Mandans who provided information, to the Shoshone who sold them horses, to a Nez Perce woman who convinced tribe members not to kill the starving and sickly group who had stumbled out of the Bitterroot Mountains, the Corps never would have made it home without the Indians.

“Native cultures have been trying to be heard and this will help,’’ says Matt Schanandorie, a Mandan and Hidatsa tribe member and an interpreter at the On-A-Slant Village at Fort Abraham Lincoln near Mandan, N.D., where visitors can step inside earth lodges.

If America has an Odyssey, it is the Corps of Discovery, says Robert Archibald, a historian and head of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Council.

“It’s the quintessential American story about moving out, seeing what’s around the next bend in the road or river.”

Nashville, Tenn.-based writer Vicki Brown and her family view last summer’s trip as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

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