CLARK, SEAMAN & LEWIS AT LEWIS AND CLARK INTERPRETIVE CENTER, SIOUX CITY, IOWA. PHOTO: JENNIFER WHITE FISCHER
By Jennifer White Fischer
The story of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark has fascinated me ever since I read an edited edition of their journals a few years ago. I decided that if I wanted to follow their trail, I needed to do it sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to look back on a missed opportunity. What a fortuitous decision in light of COVID-19!
A friend and I decided that a three-week road trip following the explorers’ route up the Missouri River across the newly acquired Louisiana Territory from St. Louis to the river’s headwaters in western Montana would be the best way to begin our Lewis and Clark adventure.
The national and state parks, museums, and interpretive centers along the way were all excellent and enabled us to appreciate the joys and hardships the Corps of Discovery experienced. I will be able to touch on only a few of them here. As we headed west from New Jersey, we dubbed ourselves the older adult versions of Thelma and Louise.
The Museum of Westward Expansion beneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, was the perfect spot to begin learning about the epic trip. Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, a Ken Burns film, gave a wonderful overview of the complete trip to the Pacific Ocean. Exhibits taught us about the history of St. Louis and the city’s role in the westward movement, the hearty pioneers of the past, the devastating impact of expansion on the Native American tribes, and the dreadful extension of slavery.
A ROOM FOR THE CAPTAINS AT CAMP RIVER DUBOIS
Lewis spent much of the winter of 1803 and 1804 in St. Louis gathering supplies for the trip and attending celebrations for the recent purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Clark was nearby on the Mississippi River’s eastern shore, training the men in military discipline at Camp River Dubois.
A wooden palisade surrounds the reconstructed fort at Lewis and Clark State Historic Site near Hartford, Illinois. We were transported back in time to the winter of 1803 and 1804 as a reenactor described the men’s daily routine, including marching, standing watch, and refining their weaponry skills. He pointed out the bundles of supplies that Lewis meticulously packed and labeled for the journey through unknown territory with extreme weather conditions.
A REPLICA OF LEWIS’ KEELBOAT AT LEWIS AND CLARK STATE HISTORIC SITE, ILLINOIS
The nearby visitor center houses an impressive cross-section of a 55-foot keelboat similar to the one the corps rowed, poled, sailed, and often dragged up the Missouri River. We could see where the myriad of provisions, ranging from gunpowder, sewing supplies, dental, medical, and surveying equipment, paper, ink, and spirits to items for trade with the Native Americans, were all stowed away.
There was a cabin for the captains located at the back with bunk beds, a desk, and shelves for scientific instruments and books.
When the corps left Camp River DuBois in spring 1804, they had no idea that they would be gone almost two-and-a-half years.
Near Sioux City, Iowa, we stopped to see the 100-foot obelisk monument to Sergeant Charles Floyd, the only casualty of the expedition. It is reminiscent of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
Historians believe that Floyd died from a ruptured appendix and that even the finest medical treatment of the day wouldn’t have saved him.
As the corps labored up the Missouri River, the captains wrote about the difficulties of traveling upstream, such as river banks collapsing, sending debris rushing down the river, and the merciless assaults by mosquitoes. Yet the men worked together without complaining. Lewis mentioned that his dog, Seaman, howled in pain from the onslaught of mosquitoes.
Jennifer White Fischer is the author of Adventures Across America: On and Off the Trail of Lewis and Clark, available at Barnes & Noble. All photos courtesy of the author.
