Finding Lewis and Clark

Go West Young Man!

The rural landscape gives us uninterrupted satellite radio.  No high mountains or deep canyons to interrupt the signal.  Now, if only cell phone coverage was as good.

Quite by accident we find a Lewis & Clark Museum in Washburn.  Jack wanted to pull over and read maps.  I suggest the gas station to the left, he goes right.  Lucky me, we spent the next 45 minutes touring the Lewis and Clark Expedition Museum which has a nice overview of the their expedition.  On the lawn outside the building steel buffalo walk alongside the side walk.  Larger than life  steel sculptures of Lewis, Clark and Sacajawea are gathered in a circle having a conference.  

President Thomas Jefferson commissioned them to explore the land beyond the Louisiana Purchase and to find a water passage to the Pacific.  They took a group of about 40 and explored the territory.  Lewis made extensive notes and drawings.  Clark – not so many.  The notes were published on their return, but only the adventurous side of their sensational expedition was published.  Over 100 new scientific discoveries, including new species of plants were recorded in their journals.  The media then, much like it is now, was more interested in the ‘adventure’ than the science.  The hardships of the travel, living through the winter, encounters with the Indians all these fascinated people more than the scientific discoveries.  These had to wait for over one hundred years to be published. By then, others had made the same discoveries, but the original credit goes to Lewis and Clark. 

Nearby is Fort Mandan where the expedition wintered in 1804.  They came prepared with food, gunpowder, lead, vinegar (for scurvy) blacksmithing tools – everything they needed except winter clothes.  They had brought about four dozen Hudson Bay wool coats which were inadequate in both number and warmth.  These were cut and sewn into mittens.  Buffalo were hunted and killed for meat and hides.  Buffalo hides could keep them warmer than anything they’d brought.  They arrived in early fall and began construction of the fort Octobe 4, 1804.  It was completed by Christmas.  Small buildings, about 11’ x 9’ were built side by side and shared a chimney.  An officer and a lower ranking member of the expedition slept on the main level.  The officer took the upper bunk while the other slept on the bottom bunk to stoke the fine every half hour or so.  Each room had a lot where 7 to 9 others slept on the floor rolled up in buffalo hides. 

Over time the Missouri River has eroded the original fort.  In 1971 the fort was reconstructed in preparation for the Bicentennial Expedition.  What took Lewis and Clark’s expedition two months to build, took volunteers over 2 years to build.  The original construction crew was highly motivated by the onset of bitter cold and snow and worked night and day to complete the shelter.  Like the Logging Camp Park we saw on our first day of our vacation, this is another example of the willingness to work hard and endure significant hardships for the sake of exploration and adventure.