The Lewis & Clark Trail, Oregon

Author: Roaring Snake
Date of Trip: March 2005

For two and a half months I have traveled along the Lewis & Clark Trail doing interviews with scholars and other people along that route. I also had most of them read excerpts from the famous “Journals of Lewis & Clark”. Discover history and stories told by locals on & off the Lewis & Clark Trail in the audio – documentary “Boundless Frontiers”

Highlights:
In 1803 the President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, asked his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to explore a territory unknown to most Euro – Americans. Together with his friend, William Clark, and a group of more than 30 people, Captain Lewis set out from the mouth of the Missouri river, north of Saint Louis, on May 14, 1804, to explore that territory then known as Louisiana. The United States had just purchased this huge tract of land from France. Virtually it extended from west of the Mississippi river to the Rocky Mountains. Lewis and Clark and their team of explorers went on to try to find the famous ‘Northwest Passage’, the legendary communication route between the headwaters of the Missouri and the Columbia leading to the Pacific. It took Lewis & Clark almost two and a half years to travel to the Pacific and back to Saint Louis.

Nowadays, the Lewis & Clark Trail runs along the route followed by the explorers, along the Missouri river to its headwaters, through the Rocky Mountains via Lolo Pass, down the Columbia to the Oregon coast and back.

Quick Tips/Suggestions:
“Boundless Frontiers” is the audio documentary containing answers and statements captured in various interviews with locals from all walks of life of our day and age as well as music that illustrates the mood of a particular location, sound illustrations reflecting natural impressions on the Lewis & Clark Trail, music from the time period of Lewis & Clark, and more excerpts of the “Journals of Lewis & Clark” read by American and Canadian actors and actresses.

“Boundless Frontiers” consists of three geographical parts: the Lower Missouri Basin, from the mouth of the Missouri near Saint Louis, Missouri, and Wood River, Illinois, to near Sioux City, Iowa; the Upper Missouri Basin, from near Vermillion, South Dakota, to the headwaters of the Missouri near Three Forks, Montana, and the Lolo Trail west of Missoula, Montana, between the states of Montana and Idaho ; the Pacific Northwest, from the end of the Lolo Trail near Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington, to the site of Fort Clatsop, Oregon, where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805/1806 before their trip back home.