Lewis and Clark

In 1804 Captain Meriwether Lewis and 2nd Lieutenant William Clark led an expedition to map and explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase and to establish a route across the North American Continent to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was known as the Corps of Discovery.  The Corps left St. Louis in May 1804 and returned in September 1806. All but one of the 40 men returned alive.


It is hard not to compare the Lewis and Clark expedition with the ill-fated Burke and Willis expedition. Burke and Willis attempted to cross Australia from South to North in 1860. Nineteen men set out and all but one perished.

The Corps of Discovery travelled by boat up the Missouri River, crossed the Rockies on foot and then followed the Columbia to it's mouth on the Pacific Coast.  They passed the winter on the West Coast in a log camp rather grandly named 'Fort' Clatsop, before returning to a hero's welcome in the East.

Fort Clatsop

Fort Clatsop has disappeared completely over time. However that hasn't stopped the National Parks Service ('NPS') from turning the site into a National Monument complete with a replica of the original camp.
We spent an enjoyable few hours exploring the camp and it's surrounds and listening to the stories of costumed volunteers on what life for the expedition would have been like.

Fort Clatsop

From Fort Clatsop (Astoria, Oregon) we have now turned south, following the rugged, stunning, lighthouse strewn Oregon Coast for two hundred miles, before heading inland toward Eugene and the Willamette River again where many of the Oregon Trail Pioneers finally ended their journeys.

Newport Oregon - it has a familiar kind of look to it!

Our final encounter with the Willamette River.

Useful links: http://www.lewisandclark.com/facts/faqs.html  http://www.nps.gov/lewi/index.htm


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For all my posts on this road trip click - here

12 July 2013