WORLD REPORT EDITION    TOP STORY

January 17, 2003

A Historic Journey

Lewis and Clark´s big adventure began 200 years ago

On January 18, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson asked Congress to approve a daring mission. He wanted to send a team of explorers from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Its cost to taxpayers: $2,500.

Congress agreed, and by the following year Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, two old Army buddies, were leading a 33-member "Corps of Discovery" on an expedition into the Wild West. Our nation has never been the same.

Over the next few years, Americans will mark the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark's mission. The bicentennial celebration is scheduled to begin January 18 at Thomas Jefferson's historic home, Monticello, in Virginia. After that, all 11 states along the Lewis and Clark trail are staging events and inviting visitors to see the sights as the explorers saw them.

Why Go West?

In 1803, the land west of the Mississippi was known only to the dozens of tribes of American Indians who had lived there for centuries, some European settlers and traders who worked along the Missouri River.

Jefferson hoped that the Missouri would lead to a Northwest Passage, a river that would provide an easy route to the Pacific Ocean. He also wanted to improve relations with the Indians by sending peaceful explorers.

The urge to explore the West was driven by another big event in 1803: the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson agreed to pay France $15 million for a huge chunk of western land. He was eager to explore this land and, he wrote, "enlarge our knowledge of the geography of our continent."

Blazing the Trail

Lewis, 29, was in the right place at the right time. He was Jefferson's neighbor and had been his secretary. After the President asked him to lead the mission, Lewis got his former commander, William Clark, 33, to join him on the trip.

As the explorers and their crew made their way up the Missouri in boats, they began filling journals. The thousands of pages they wrote tell the story of their journey in their own poetic, charming, misspelled way. Lewis wrote of the "beatifull" plains. Clark told of being bitten by pesky "musquetors." He also described the power of seeing the Pacific for the first time: "Ocian in view! O! the joy."

"Some explorers would have written, 'Proceeded upriver and camped,'" says Patricia Limerick of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "We're very lucky to be their heirs because of their fluidity of words."

They sketched their discoveries too: grazing buffalo herds and prairie dogs popping up. The journals, along with Clark's detailed map of the West, are the trip's true treasures.

Surprises Along the Way

There were misunderstandings, but only one violent conflict between the explorers and Indians. In fact, a Shoshone guide named Sacagawea (Sac-uh- juh-wee-uh) was a vital member of the crew. She joined up with Lewis and Clark at Fort Mandan, where they spent their first winter. Sacagawea guided the crew through Indian territory to the Pacific, then back to Fort Mandan.

Of course, the U.S. later fought the Indians and took their land. "[The expedition] has that mixed quality of great news for one people and bad news for another," says Limerick.

Clark is often described as the warmer, friendly one of the pair. Lewis liked to scout ahead of the team alone. That's how he became the first to see the massive Rocky Mountains and the 400-foot Great Falls of the Missouri.

While scouting, Lewis also became the first to realize that there is no mighty river flowing straight to the Pacific. To reach the coast, the explorers had to hike many mountains and haul boats over land. But despite the lack of a Northwest Passage, generations of Americans have declared the mission a success.

http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/magazines/story/0,6277,407492,00.html