“Great joy … we are in sight of the Ocian, … this great Pacific Ocian that we long to see, and the … roar or noise of the waves crashing on the rocky shores … can be heard clearly “wrote William Clark in his diary, after more than 18 months of traveling across the country.
Sunlight filters through the trees and into a quiet clearing, highlighting the lush ground. As you enter the log dwellings at Fort Clatsop, near the Oregon coast, you must crouch at the hanging doors to peer inside and understand what life must have been like for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. His expedition team wintered here in 1805-06, following their pioneering journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, a round trip that turned into an 8,000-mile journey.
Hoping to find a Northwest Passage, President Thomas Jefferson sought exploration of the vast country west of the Mississippi and chose his secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, for the task. Lewis invited his friend Lieutenant William Clark to share the leadership. They both came from military backgrounds with Indian tribes.
President Jefferson felt that the mission of the expedition was not only to chart the new territory of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase, but also to define the destiny of the nation. The expedition was the first official exploration of unknown territory by the United States government. The requested funding from Congress was $ 2,500, but the final cost would be closer to $ 40,000.
Maps of the time depicting the west were sketchy and, in some cases, totally false. The lack of detail in western cartography suggested the enormous task facing the expedition. Many maps showed that the Rocky Mountains were narrow and unbreakable. Crossing the Rocky Mountains was going to be the hardest part of the explorers’ journey.
In December 1803, Clark began training the men who had volunteered to go on the expedition, turning them into an efficient team. The youngest man, George Shannon, was 17 years old, the oldest, John Shields, 35. The average age of men was 27.
During the winter of 1803-1804, men built a fort, calling it “Camp River Dubois”. Located on the Wood River at the fork of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, north of St. Louis, Missouri, it was across the river in Illinois. By the spring of 1804, using the $ 2,500.00 that Congress appropriated, Lewis and Clark had accumulated more than ten tons of merchandise for the trip.
On May 14, 1804, William Clark and the Corps of Discovery set out from Camp River Dubois to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean and a week later Meriwether Lewis joined the group in St. Charles, Missouri. The group of 45 began their journey with a 55-foot covered keel boat and two smaller boats.
The group was fortunate to average 10-15 miles per day, as traveling the Missouri River was difficult in part due to the river’s strong current and many obstacles, such as floating trees capable of sinking a boat. In the spring of 1805, the keelboat would be returned to St. Louis and the Corps of Discovery continued in canoes and on foot.
On July 4, 1804, the Corps of Discovery approached what is now Atchinson, Kansas. Here they observed the first July 4th celebrated west of the Mississippi by sharing an extra helping of whiskey, firing the barrel of the keelboat, and appropriately naming a stream “Independence Creek.”
As the group moved to the Great Plains, they began to see unknown animals in the east: coyotes, pronghorn antelope, and black-tailed deer. They were also intrigued by the little prairie dogs that built vast underground villages. When the men encountered ferocious brown bears, who attacked them, they discovered that the brown bears were truly the kings of the western plains. In all, they would describe 122 animals that had not previously been recorded.
During the winter of 1804-1805, Lewis and Clark recruited a Frenchman by the name of Toussaint Charbonneau, who had lived with the Hidatsa Indians (sometimes referred to as Minnetari) for many years, as their interpreter. They got not only Charbonneau, but his 16-year-old Shoshoni Indian wife, Sacagawea, and their newborn baby, Jean Baptiste. Captured by a raiding group of Hidatsa warriors five years earlier, Sacagawea had been kidnapped from her homeland in the Rocky Mountains and taken to the village of Knife River. Lewis and Clark knew that they would likely meet their people in the Rocky Mountains and that the Indians there could provide horses for their overland journey.
Once Discovery’s body was in the country of the Sacagawea people, the young Indian woman became invaluable when it was discovered that the chief was her brother. The chief provided the group with guides and horses for the difficult journey of the high Bitterroot range.
Lewis celebrated his 31st birthday on August 18, 1805, and wrote in his journal: “Up to now I had done little, very little.” He promises “in the future, to live for humanity, as I have lived up to now for myself.”
On October 16, 1805, the group reached the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, where Clark estimated that he saw 10,000 pounds of salmon drying out in an Indian village. On the 18th, Clark observes Mount Hood in the distance. Seen and named in 1792 by a British ship captain, it is a fixed point on the expedition map.
While traveling through the Columbia River Gorge, the Corps of Discovery explored and camped on both sides of the vast river. In what is now Clark County in Washington, explorers logged five camps and assessed the area as the best location to settle on the western side of the continental divide. In 1825, Hudson Bay built Fort Vancouver here to serve the Oregon Territory and protect the British claim.
When Clark made his “Great Joy …” journal entry in November 1805, the party had mistaken an area 25 miles from the actual mouth of the Columbia River, which today borders the states of Oregon and Washington, with its long-sought goal of the Pacific Ocean.
Clark will later estimate that they had traveled 4,162 miles from the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific. Your estimate, based on dead reckoning, will turn out to be within 40 miles of the actual distance.
Bad weather kept the group in the river gorge for two wet and hungry weeks before Lewis, said to be the group’s great strategist, set off in a small shelter in hopes of finding a suitable winter camp for the group.
In the middle of the coastal wetlands, he located high ground surrounded by lush ancient forest, south of what is now Astoria and north of what is now the town of Seaside, an area in the northwest corner of what is now the state of Oregon.
The final decision to make this their westernmost headquarters was made by a vote of the entire party on November 24, 1805, including the young Indian woman Sacagawea. The log fort they built was named after the local Clatsop Indians. From December 7, 1805 to March 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery wintered at Fort Clatsop.
Judging by the selection of this site, Clark wrote in his diary on December 7, 1805: “This is without doubt the most eligible situation for our purposes of any other in your neighborhood.”
Along one of Seaside’s quiet residential streets, overlooking the ocean, visitors can view the Corps of Discovery’s original winter site “Salt Works” or “Salt Camp”.
Lewis’s journal entry for January 1, 1806 read: “This morning I woke up early this morning to the discharge of a volley of small arms, which were fired by our group … to usher in the new year. … at present we were happy to eat our boiled moose and … just our thirst with our only drink of pure water. “
The Corps of Discovery’s winter stay at Fort Clatsop was dull, dreary and wet, all but 12 days of their 106-day stay it rained, but it gave the party time to organize their return trip. “In this place … we wintered and we stayed … and we have lived as well as we had the right to hope,” wrote William Clark in his journal before the Corps of Discovery took hold and began to trace the Columbia River to turn back. home.
When the group left on their return, they camped in the delta area of the Columbia River Gorge, east of present-day Metro Portland-Vancouver. A group of traveling Indians informed them that game was scarce upriver, so explorers spent more time here packing game for food and clothing.
Although it took 18 months to reach the Pacific, the return trip was made in a third of the time, leaving Fort Clatsop on March 23, 1806; they returned to St. Louis on September 23 of that year. Both Lewis and Clark returned as heroes after a journey that lasted two years, four months and sixteen days.
On the nation’s Capitol, President Jefferson praised the efforts of the men, saying, “It is fair to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clark and their brave companions, through this arduous service, deserve the good of their country.”
Jefferson rewarded both men with appointments. Lewis became governor of the new Louisiana Territory and Clark became a brigadier general in the militia and chief Indian agent.
The Lewis and Clark expedition failed to find a Northwest Passage, but they shaped the boundaries and future of the United States. After Clark’s refined map was published in 1814, the first to accurately show the interior continent of the American West, settlers and merchants began traveling the route he and Lewis had opened.
His expedition also provided a useful background for the United States to claim the Oregon Territory. During the Lewis and Clark bicentennial from 2003 to 2006, millions of tourists, mostly history buffs, visited communities along the 3,700-mile trail and participated in local celebrations. These celebrations were a 200th anniversary shared with the union of Native Americans and whites.
Imagine standing where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and most of the Corps of Discovery actually lived. The Lewis and Clark Interpretive at Fort Clatsop, offers a full-scale replica of the fort on the original site.
After 1806, the forest and the elements soon recovered the original fort, but in 1955, using Clark’s sketches, a replica was built on the same site and is managed by the National Park Service. Dressed in buckskins, the rangers recreate what life might have been like for explorers.
Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area remains one of the most beautiful places along the Lewis and Clark Trail. On both sides of the gorge are several interpretive museums, including the Maryhill Museum (WA), the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles, Oregon, and the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center in Stevenson, Washington.
There is something very special about seeing places along the Lewis and Clark trail through the eyes of a child, making this a great trip to take with your children or grandchildren. Lewis and Clark’s story offers one of courage in the face of overwhelming forces. Whether you choose to hike the entire route that Lewis and Clark traveled or hike parts of the trail, there is always something interesting to do and see along the trail that was pioneered by early explorers.
