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The Lewis and Clark Expedition in Washington State, 1805-1806
Map showing the route, and campsites,
used by Lewis and Clark
Introduction
The route taken in 1804-1806 by Lewis and Clark
When Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery crossed into what is now the state of Washington in October 1805, they assumed that the worst part of their journey was behind them. They expected an easy float down the Columbia River to their objective, the Pacific Ocean. Instead, they found a nearly unrelenting series of obstacles, dangers, and annoyances, from life-threatening rapids to inescapable fleas.
The rapids on the Columbia were much bigger and swifter than any they had encountered elsewhere. In the Columbia Gorge, warm air from the arid, treeless plains of eastern Washington collided with cooler air from the west, creating thermal winds of terrific force. Wood was scarce; any driftwood cast ashore by annual spring floods quickly vanished in the campfires of thousands of Indians. Clark reported that people in one village were drying fish and prickly pears to burn as fuel in winter.
On the lower Columbia, the challenges of the river were compounded by the continual irritation of fleas, one legacy of the mild weather and the large population of dogs among the native people. At times, the men could get relief only by stripping naked and getting into the water.
Waterfowl flourished in the marshlands, bringing yet another aggravation. "I [s]lept but verry little last night for the noise Kept [up] dureing the whole of the night by the Swans, Geese, white & Grey Brant Ducks &c. on a Small Sand Island," Clark wrote at one point (using his distinctive spelling). "…they were emensely noumerous, and their noise horid."
The closer they got to the Pacific, the more they suffered. This ocean, Clark mused bitterly, was not "pacific" at all, but "tempestuous and horiable." Storms pinned the party against the rugged, windswept northern coast for weeks. Waves slammed into the mouth of the Columbia with such force that some of the party got seasick. Their leather clothes rotted from the continual soakings, their supplies ran low, and they all got heartily sick of salmon.
This is where Lewis and Clark spent the winter
On the coast, it rained, drumming a cheerless note in Clark’s journal: "rained all the after part of last night, rain continues this morning…a cool wet raney morning…eleven days rain, and the most disagreeable time I have experenced…." Still, as the expedition prepared to leave its winter headquarters at Fort Clatsop, on the southern (Oregon) side of the Columbia, on March 23, 1806, his tone was conciliatory: "at this place we had wintered and remained from the 7th of Decr. 1805 to this day and have lived as well as we had any right to expect…not withstanding the repeeted fall of rain…."
Two hundred years later, not much remains unchanged along the Lewis and Clark Trail in Washington. Many of the expedition’s campsites, along with the ancestral villages and fishing grounds of the Indians they met, have been flooded by dams. The plains of eastern Washington now bloom with orchards, vineyards, and other agricultural enterprises, the result of massive irrigation projects. From Clarkston to the coast, the Snake and Columbia Rivers, once muscled with white water, have been turned into a slackwater canal, carrying ocean-going barges more than 400 miles inland. Railroads and freeways slice through lands that once knew only Indian trails.
But the wind still blows through the Columbia Gorge and the rain still falls on the Pacific Coast.
Signs denote the route that Lewis and Clark took.
Here's an excerpt of the timeline for the time they were in Washington...
October 16
Having raced down the Clearwater, then the Snake rivers, they reach the
Columbia. The river teems with salmon – Clark estimates 10,000 pounds of salmon
drying in one village – but the men want meat to eat, so they buy dogs from the
Indians.
October 18
Clark sees Mount Hood in the distance. Seen and named by a British sea captain
in 1792, it is a fixed point on the expedition’s map, proof they are at last
approaching the ocean. Soon they pass through the raging falls of the Columbia
and into the Gorge, emerging from the arid semi-deserts of eastern Washington
and Oregon into the dense rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.
November 7
Thinking he sees the end of land in the distance, Clark writes his most famous
journal entry: “Ocian in view! O! the joy.” [His spelling.] But they’re actually
only at the eastern end of Gray’s Bay, still 20 miles from sea. Fierce Pacific
storms, rolling waters, and high winds pin them down for nearly three weeks,
“the most disagreeable time I have experienced,” according to Clark.
Later, Clark estimates they have traveled 4,162 miles from the mouth of the
Missouri to the Pacific. His estimate, based on dead reckoning, will turn out to
be within 40 miles of the actual distance.
November 24
To make the crucial decision of where to spend the winter, the captains decide
to put the matter to a vote. Significantly, in addition to the others, Clark’s
slave, York, is allowed to vote – nearly 60 years before slaves in the U. S.
would be emancipated and enfranchised. Sacagawea, the Indian woman, votes too –
more than a century before either women or Indians are granted the full rights
of citizenship.
The majority decides to cross to the south side of the Columbia, near modern-day
Astoria, Oregon, to build winter quarters.
December 25
An entire continent between them and home, the expedition celebrates Christmas
in its new quarters, Fort Clatsop, named for a neighboring Indian tribe. The
captains hand out handkerchiefs and the last of the expedition’s tobacco supply
as presents.
January 1
In his journal entry, Lewis exhibits the homesickness that seems to afflict
everyone during the rainy winter, during which there are only 12 days in which
it doesn’t rain. “Nothing worthy of notice” soon replaces “we proceeded on” as
the most common phrase used by the diarists.
January 4
In the East, President Jefferson welcomes a delegation of Missouri, Oto, Arikara,
and Yankton Sioux chiefs who had met Lewis and Clark more than a year earlier.
Jefferson thanks them for helping the expedition and tells them of his hope
“that we may all live together as one household.” The chiefs respond with praise
for the explorers, but doubts about whether Jefferson’s other “white children”
will keep his word.
March 7
Having previously run out of whiskey, the expedition now runs out of tobacco.
Patrick Gass reports that the men use crab tree bark as a substitute.
March 23
Fort Clatsop is presented to the Clatsops, and the expedition sets off for
home.
May - late June
The expedition arrives back with the Nez Percé but have to wait for the snows to
melt on the Bitterroots before trying to cross them. They play a game of “base”
with the Indians, who once again provide the explorers with food. Lewis calls
them “the most hospitable, honest and sincere people that we have met with in
our voyage.”
A REALLY good place to go for more Lewis and Clark information can be found at the Lewis and Clark Trail's website:
http://lewisandclarktrail.com/