William Clark

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A special Lewis and Clark day

I always approach the day of November 19 with reverence and a large dose of grateful joy.

When I wake up on the morning of November 19, I give thanks to the universe. And then comes a laugh and a day of happiness celebrating the simple facts that, No. 1, I once completed a rugged journey across much of America that few folks in our modern age have made; No. 2, I survived; and, No. 3, I’m still alive, almost a half-century later, to tell the story.

November 19 was the day of the year—back 48 years ago—when four of my friends and I reached the St. Louis Gateway Arch, completing a half-year, 3,700-mile journey along the trail of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Our excursion was undertaken when I was a young man, a very young man, age 23, and it was by backpack; canoe and kayak on the rivers; and by foot across the Rockies.

Sometimes, as we hiked the Lolo Trail, the mountain forests were so silent all we could hear was our own beating hearts.

The journey was a poetic ballad of sweat, Nature’s beauty, friendship, aching muscles, blisters, sunburns, the fresh smell of pine trees, starry nights, snowy mornings, unbounded enthusiasm, at times gut-wrenching fear, great laughter, cold rain, and more sweat, always sweat, and always wind in our faces no matter which way we faced, a great mystery how that always seemed to be.

We started in early June at Fort Clatsop near the mouth of the Columbia River at the coastal edge of Oregon. The fort of today is a replica of a long-gone winter fort constructed there by the Lewis and Clark explorers in late 1805 after they spent the previous year and a half traveling through the wilderness from St. Louis. They lived at their Fort Clatsop for almost four months and in the spring of 1806 undertook a 6-month journey back to civilization at St. Louis.

One member of our group, Mike Cochran, was a cartoonist. This was his version of how Lewis and Clark and the dog Seaman felt at times as they moved along the Lolo Trail. A slight bit of editorial license here—back then, Lewis and Clark rode horses across the mountains. Poor ol’ Seaman, though, had to hoof it!

From Fort Clatsop, we paddled up the Columbia, Snake, and Clearwater rivers, hiked across the Lolo Trail in the high mountains of Idaho and into Montana (our two canoes and a kayak were trucked over the mountains), and then paddled down the Beaverhead and Jefferson rivers to the Missouri River. The Missouri took us north—to within 50 miles of the Canadian border—and then curved us directly south through the Dakotas, along the edges of Nebraska and Iowa, and southeast across the state of Missouri to that beautiful Gateway Arch towering 630 feet above the river.

Our route from west to east covered the same territory as Lewis and Clark. The explorers went up the Missouri River, rode across the Rocky Mountains—from western Montana and across Idaho—on horses that they traded for with Native Americans. On the west side of the mountains, they built canoes and paddled down the Clearwater, Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific coast. The spent the winter of 1805-06 at the mouth of the Columbia and then returned to St. Louis mostly by the same route.

Oh, what was it that the poet Robert Burns once wrote about the best laid schemes of mice and men? The plans of Lewis and Clark reenactors often go awry, too.  We figured it’d be a little tough going up the Columbia, Snake and Clearwater rivers, against the current—and it was, but not bad. We also thought it’d be easy going with the current flowing down the Missouri River. That was the deciding factor—the Missouri’s downstream flowing—for why we went from west to east. We couldn’t have been more wrong.

Today’s Missouri River is still free-flowing, clear, swift, and gorgeous through a stretch of Montana. But then, farther on, 19 dams now back up huge reservoirs in Montana and the Dakotas, and the mighty river becomes what seems like one endless lake. Some reservoirs are so wide you can’t see across to the far shore. High winds often skim along the surface of the water, churning up giant, dangerous waves. Travel by muscle power was so slow that some days we struggled to make a dozen miles of progress across the reservoirs.

Almost a half-century ago, I stepped across the source of the Missouri River. This photo was published in an article that I wrote for the Denver Post’s Empire Magazine. Click here to read the article. On August 12, 1805, Lewis and some of his men reached the source not far from where I stood for this photo.  Lewis wrote in his journal that one of the men, Hugh McNeal, “had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri.”

The youngest of us was a tall, rosy-cheeked Idahoan, Clay Asher, who had just graduated from the Twin Falls high school and reached the age of 18 only a few days prior to our departure. He could paddle all day. Even with a 60-pound pack on his back, he would keep a long-legged stride going for hours along rough and steep mountain trails. He loved the outdoors. He knew the wildlife and the plant life. He had a natural instinct for navigating rapids. Most importantly, he knew how to laugh while standing soaked in a freezing downpour in the middle of nowhere. Lewis and Clark had a youngster with them, too, George Shannon, who sometimes got lost but knew how to hunt. I’ve often wondered if Clay was George Shannon’s reincarnation.

By the time we reached the Gateway Arch on November 19, I had lost 50 pounds (I was on the chunky side prior to our journey…But the daily rigors of outdoor life slimmed me down considerably!), capsized 22 times, almost drowned once when I was stuck under a capsized canoe—and would’ve certainly not survived if one of my companions, Mike Wien, hadn’t happened to spot my hand sticking for help out of the water. Another time, we almost lost a companion, Mike Cochran, when giant waves, kicked up by a sudden windstorm, swamped his canoe in the cold Snake River where it flowed through an isolated landscape of nothing but boulders, sagebrush, rattlesnakes, and a bit of driftwood. By the time we rescued him, he had slipped so far into hypothermia that we had to encircle him in a ring of campfires to bring warmth back into his body.

A few times we became lost as the path disappeared while we trekked through the great mountain forests of the Lolo Trail. At such times, our always optimistic leader (I say this with great admiration), Bob Miller, emphasized we weren’t really lost because, truly, we knew where we were, just that we didn’t know for sure how to get where we wanted to be. He was right. We always got there, wherever there was. Bob’s philosophy offered a great lesson that has helped me through all of these years—don’t worry so much about where you are; instead, focus on where you want to be.

Bob Miller on the Missouri River as it passes through the White Cliffs region in Montana. In a lengthy, eloquent description on May 31, 1805, Meriwether Lewis journaled that the enchanted cliffs “exhibit a most romantic appearance.” Here’s what else Lewis about the White Cliffs…

We were awed just to be out there, lost or not, standing at times on the Lolo Trail, for example, on the ridge of a high mountain and viewing nothing but dark green forested mountains ahead and, beyond them, more mountains and, still, beyond those, even more mountains, fading into the hazy horizon of a blue sky. At night, in places where the ambient light of communities did not exist, the sky was so thick with stars seeming so close to us that I felt like I could reach up and touch them. Such views few of us in today’s world seldom enjoy.

{What food did we eat? How experienced were we prior to this journey through Nature? Why did we go? And what became of the five of us after our journey? Click here to find out.}

Looking back now, I find it’s interesting to compare those days of Lewis and Clark’s expedition and, likewise, our journey in 1973 to what’s around today, in 2019.

Back then, five decades ago, most locals knew only scant details, if any, about the travels of Lewis and Clark through their region. They had no idea of the connection between the names of local rivers and other geographic features to Lewis and Clark. The same goes for local flora and fauna. Lewis and Clark identified dozens of plants and animals previously unseen by Americans of the early 19th century. Many local folks in 1973 had no idea of Lewis and Clark’s role in identifying birds and other wildlife in their area.

How Mike Cochran showed what it was like to reach St. Louis on Nov. 19, 1973.

The prairie dog is a great example. The explorers viewed it as a small dog that barks, and one time they poured buckets and buckets of water into the hole of a prairie dog colony in an attempt to flush out and capture one of the tiny critters to send back to President Jefferson, a fellow with quite an inquisitive mind. In 1973 and even today, some locals merely consider prairie dogs as a growing nuisance, not as a biological oddity as Lewis and Clark did.

Now, thanks to the popularity of the 2003-06 national bicentennial celebration of the expedition and groups like the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, it’s pretty darn hard to spit along the trail without hitting a historic marker commemorating Lewis and Clark, or Sacagawea or Clark’s salve, York, or the more than two dozen other men on the expedition or, for that matter, Lewis’ Newfoundland dog, Seaman.

This is what it was really like. Bob Miller, in the bow, and Clay Asher headed to the Gateway Arch on Nov. 19, 1973.

Today, school kids can recite dates, adventures, and Lewis and Clark journal entries that describe what happened and when and where it happened in their locality. Historians and authors continue to publish books with new insights about the explorers. Annual Lewis and Clark festivals are held. Bridges are named after the explorers. So are streets, schools, and even a college. And frequently people pick up their paddles and set out to retrace parts of the expedition’s.

In March 2019, a federally approved law extended the trail by 1,200 miles. Where once the officially recognized trail started at St. Louis, it now goes from Pittsburgh, Pa., down the length of the Ohio River and a short distance up the Mississippi River, to St. Louis. From St. Louis, the route goes another 3,700 miles up the Missouri River, across the Rockies, and down the Clearwater, Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific coast. I sometimes wish I was a bit younger—I’ll be 72 years old in a couple of months—and still had the stamina of youth to paddle from Pittsburgh to St. Louis so I can brag that, well, by golly, I did the whole Lewis and Clark Trail.

The federal approval of the extension was a major accomplishment for the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation and other nonprofit organizations. (Click here to read an article I wrote about the extension for the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation’s website.)

{To learn more about Lewis and Clark, click here to go the website of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. While you’re there, become a member—it’s a worthwhile organization that is the keeper of the Lewis and Clark story. Here’s the foundation’s Facebook page.}

Today’s widespread popularity of Lewis and Clark speaks to the yearning desire for great adventure that many Americans have but are unable to pursue beyond short canoe trips or day hikes along the trail, or expeditions by car to follow parts of the route of the 1803-06 expedition.

In 2019, we have a nation that is politically and philosophically divided in harsh ways. Back in 1973, it wasn’t so much different. A disgraced Spiro Agnew resigned the vice presidency as we paddled the Missouri River, and Richard Nixon was lying about Watergate and other matters.

During the time when Lewis and Clark were forging their trail, Alexander Hamilton was fatally shot during a duel with Aaron Burr, the ultimate price of political rivalry. And Jefferson was involved in a war with Barbary Pirates, the first terrorists to haunt the psyche of America.

Mike Cochran drew this cartoon after he nearly died from hypothermia after huge waves the canoe he was in, capsizing it.

Anyway, those are just some of my musings as November 19 comes around for its annual visit. It’s a good day of the year. A fine day to remember the way things were and to think about how they are today.

How did Lewis and Clark spend the day of November 19 in 1803, 1804, and 1805? You’ll be surprised! Click here to find out…

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Passions and value of extending Lewis and Clark trail

Legislation now before the U.S. Senate would extend the official federally designated Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail to include 1,200 miles of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

It’s a proposal that has excited Lewis and Clark buffs, as you’ll see when you read profiles about two Lewis and Clark enthusiasts later in this article.

The proposed extension would encompass such riverside communities as Clarksville, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of which are important in the story of Lewis and Clark.

Currently, the official Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail goes for 3,700 miles from Wood River, Illinois, near St. Louis, Missouri, to the mouth of the Columbia River at the Pacific coasts of Oregon and Washington. The expedition comprised of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and other expedition members left Wood River on May 14, 1804, and returned to the St. Louis area in September 1806.

For some unknown reason, the explorers’ 1,200-mile journey on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in 1803 to reach Wood River was not included when the current historic trail became federally designated decades ago.

“We’ve always felt our story was an untold one,” said Phyllis Yeager of the Ohio River Chapter of the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.

The Ohio-Mississippi journey, as well as Lewis and Clark sites as far east as the nation’s Capitol, are generally referred to as the Eastern Legacy. The Eastern Legacy spans parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, and Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.

There are places in those 14 states and the District of Columbia that may be significant in the planning and execution of the expedition, or locations of Lewis or Clark events prior to or after the journey. For example, Lewis’ gravesite near Hohenwald in Tennessee is considered to be part of the Eastern Legacy.

In February 2018, the National Park Service released an extensive study that looked at extending the official historic trail to include all or parts of the Eastern Legacy. The study, done from 2009 to 2016 through a 2008 congressionally authorized study, followed criteria established by the National Trail System Act.

Cover of the NPS study. Click here to read the study.

The study reviewed 25 historical sites and geographic segments related to the expedition. Options were narrowed to three segments that encompass the 1,200 miles of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

After a draft of the study was completed in 2016, the NPS held a public comment period that garnered 323 responses from individuals, organizations, and agencies. Overall, the comments indicated public support for extending the official trail, said Tokey Boswell, chief of planning and compliance for the NPS Midwest regional office based in Omaha.

“As with most projects, there was a range of enthusiasm and concern,” said Boswell, who oversaw the study. “Non-profit organizations that interpret the Lewis and Clark story and some individual sites and cities along the study route appreciated the possibility of an NPS presence and a bigger platform to share their history. Others were concerned about private property rights and inviting visitors into areas where there is not much visitation currently.”

“When the National Trail System Act criteria were applied, the activities at Pittsburgh and beyond really stood out,” Boswell noted. “The study was very careful to note that any successful trail extension will depend on partnerships (with local volunteer groups, communities, and agencies) and additional funding.” The plan, he added, would be to “start slowly and grow over time” as far as adding NPS staff, funding, signage, publications, and other items necessary for administering a successful trail.

With the study in hand, Rep. Luke Messer (R-Indiana), along with co-sponsors Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Indiana), Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), and John Yarmuth (D-Kentucky), introduced bipartisan legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to extend the federally recognized Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail to include the 1,200 miles of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The House legislation passed July 23.

This is a map of the official federally designated Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail from the area of St. Louis, Mo., to the mouth of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. The proposed trail extension includes 1,200 miles of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from Pittsburgh to St. Louis. See the map below to view the proposed trail extension. The map above came from Weber State University.

Subsequently, similar Senate legislation was introduced August 23 as the Eastern Legacy Extension Act. The legislation would extend the official historic trail to include the 1,200 river miles from Pittsburgh to Wood River in the St. Louis area.

The bipartisan bill was introduced by Sen. Todd C. Young (R-Indiana) and co-sponsored by Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Indiana). The proposed legislation was read in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

It’s unknown how long the senatorial process may take.

{Read the Senate bill titled S.3375}

In testimony before the House, Lindy Hatcher, executive director of the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation headquartered in Great Falls, Montana, said the journey on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers was important because Lewis and Clark recruited, organized, and trained men for the grueling exploration of the Pacific Northwest. It was along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers where the Corps of Discovery—the expedition’s name—began working together as a team, Hatcher noted.

The proposed extension of the Eastern Legacy (in green) from Pittsburgh to Wood River, Illinois, in the St. Louis area. Map source: National Park Service.

Meanwhile, in an April letter to Congress, Matt Pierce, a state representative in Indiana, offered this analysis: “A large concentration of population in the eastern United States will be brought closer to the official trail by extending it to Pittsburgh. Many of those residents will see official trail sites along the Ohio River corridor for the first time and be inspired by those locations to retrace the steps of the Expedition all the way to the Oregon coast, boosting tourism for all Lewis and Clark Trail states.”

{Click here to check out a travel brochure that shows  Lewis and Clark offerings in the Eastern Legacy}

For this article, I interviewed two Lewis and Clark buffs living along the Ohio River in the Eastern Legacy: John McNulty of Pittsburgh and Phyllis Yeager, Clarksville, Indiana. Both have good stories to tell about their involvement with Lewis and Clark activities. Each has an enthusiastic passion for including the 1,200 miles as part of the official historic trail.

Interested in Lewis and Clark? Click here to learn more and join the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.

When I talked by cell phone with McNulty, he was on a brisk walk from his home toward a meeting about extending a bicycle trail that would include Lewis and Clark sites. He paused from his walk at a spot where he could view not only the Ohio River and historic Lewis and Clark locations but also the Pittsburgh Steelers’ stadium.

John McNulty in his Lewis and Clark re-enactment garb.

Not far from him was the site where a Lewis and Clark interpretive sign will be erected through funding by the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. The sign will offer information about the nearby Brunot Island in the Ohio River. The island was where a mishap with Lewis’ unique weapon, an air gun, ended with a woman accidentally getting shot, a grazing non-fatal but surely painful head wound.

McNulty, 54, grew up in Pittsburgh. In his younger years, there was a severe dearth of local information about Lewis and Clark. In the 1980s, he was a camp counselor at the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, and he began learning about Lewis and Clark to teach scouts about 19th-century living.

“Nobody ever told us that Lewis and Clark had anything to do with Pennsylvania,” McNulty recalled about his days of youth in Pittsburgh. “That was really a shock when I realized it.”

In 2003, he heard about a modern expedition, a re-enactment for the 2003-06 national bicentennial commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. McNulty quit his job as a narrator on an Ohio River tour boat and joined the re-enactment. He remained with the modern expedition for only three weeks, until his father became ill and he returned to Pittsburgh to help care for him.

Three years later—in 2006—the ongoing re-enactment again called to McNulty’s sense of adventure. He left a job in a call center in May and caught a Greyhound bus to join the modern explorers in June. At that time, they were departing from Lewiston, Idaho. McNulty traveled with the re-enactors east across the Lolo Trail that Lewis and Clark followed through Idaho and into Montana. He remained with the re-enactment until September 23 when it reached St. Louis. September 23, by the way, is the day the original expedition was completed in 1806 in St. Louis.

What do you think? Please take a short survey at the end of this article.

When the re-enactors entered a community, celebrations were held by locals to honor them and the original explorers. During these festive occasions, McNulty often took on the persona of Pierre Cruzatte, an experienced boatman. The son of a Frenchman and an Omaha Indian mother, Cruzatte played the violin and often entertained the explorers around campfires.

“I can play the violin,” said McNulty in explaining why he took on Cruzatte’s role, “and I can fake a good French accent.”

Today, McNulty performs one-man music shows in area nursing homes, leads history hikes in the city through a non-profit group called Venture Outdoors, and does living history displays with a theme of Lewis and Clark at festivals and other public events.

Now, though, he portrays expedition member George Gibson, a native Pennsylvanian and hunter. Gibson also played the violin but not with Cruzatte’s flair. “I thought George Gibson would be the best person to portray since he’s from this area,” McNulty said.

McNulty can easily offer reasons why Pittsburgh is important in the Lewis and Clark story. It was there that the explorers’ keelboat was constructed and launched. Lewis began journaling the happenings of the adventure as he left Pittsburgh. It was in Pittsburgh where Clark’s letter to Lewis arrived to say he is “cheerfully” honored to “partake of the dangers, difficulties and fatigues” of the impending expedition. The plan was for Lewis to meet up with Clark downstream near the Falls of the Ohio.

With admiration for Lewis and Clark always close by in his thoughts, McNulty is working toward his vision that the theme of Lewis and Clark becomes a prime mover in efforts to teach young and old about local and national history; and about such issues as watersheds, journaling, literacy, geography, and the values of friendship, teamwork and outdoor recreation.

Currently underway for McNulty is a project to start a wildlife conservation area on the 129-acre Brunot Island, part of which is now the site of a 315-megawatt power plant. The rest of the island is unused and a potentially good site for a bird sanctuary. He is also involved in a project to create a family-friendly bike system through the upper Ohio River watershed. The bike system could be a boon to tourism and tied into Lewis and Clark history.

Another of McNulty’s projects sparks one’s imagination directly back to Meriwether Lewis. The project is a community effort to save the Old Stone Tavern, built in circa 1782 and now Pittsburgh’s oldest commercial structure. The tavern has ties to the Whiskey Rebellion and was likely in operation when Lewis suffered through an agonizingly long wait in Pittsburgh while a boatwright, who seemed to enjoy whiskey more than boatwrighting, constructed a keelboat for the expedition. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine that Lewis, known for enjoying a dram or two, would have partaken of a fair share of adult beverage in the tavern.

McNulty said the inclusion of the 1,200 miles of the Eastern Legacy would be invaluable in these efforts. “It could help Pittsburgh rebrand itself. It would be a great thing for the Ohio River valley and Pennsylvania, as well as the entire Lewis and Clark Trail.”

He added, “It would be like all the Super Bowls rolled into one.”

{Read an article about McNulty, published May 18, 2018, from an interview with The Alleghany Front, a public radio station in Pittsburgh.}

 Phyllis Yeager has worked diligently to promote Lewis and Clark within the Eastern Legacy. Her home in the Clarksville area is near the Falls of the Ohio. Louisville, Kentucky, is located across the river from Clarksville.

Phyllis Yeager with some of her Lewis and Clark mementos.

Yeager grew up in Montana’s Lewis and Clark country where the history of the expedition is commonly known. Her grandfather told her stories about the extraordinary journey. From her childhood home, she could see national forests and mountain peaks named after the explorers. So Yeager was steeped in the expedition’s story when she moved to Indiana in the 1980s and became associated with the local convention and tourism board.

After relocating to Indiana, she was surprised by the small smattering of local appreciation for Lewis and Clark’s time in Clarksville and Louisville, and along the Ohio River. The only Lewis and Clark recognition to be found was an inconspicuous historical marker on the banks of the Ohio River. Yeager photographed the marker caked with mud from a high flow of the river. Next to the marker was an old car tire.

Once described as “a natural phenomenon of energy” by a former magazine editor, Yeager was appointed in 2001 by the Indiana governor to sit on the board of the state’s newly created Lewis and Clark Expedition Commission, a position she continues to hold. She served on the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation board from 2004 to 2010, and was active in the local, state and national celebrations of the bicentennial commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from 2003 to 2006. She was also active in successful lobbying efforts in Indiana and Kentucky to have Lewis and Clark’s names put on a new 2,500-foot Ohio River bridge in 2016 that connects the two states.

During her years of Lewis and Clark volunteer work, she realized the Eastern Legacy’s potential importance to public education, tourism, recreation, and, among other benefits, keeping alive the story of the most important expedition in U.S. history.

“It’s been a passion for me,” she said in a telephone interview.

The idea of extending the official trail to include Eastern Legacy segments gained strength as activities of the 2003-06 bicentennial familiarized more Americans with the expedition. The extension effort was long on volunteerism but short on funds. This prompted some creative maneuvers. Yeager and others began promoting the Eastern Legacy’s contribution to the expedition. Among their endeavors was a successful project that resulted in the state issuing special vehicle license plates designed with Lewis and Clark artwork. A portion of the revenue from the ongoing project goes to the state’s Lewis and Clark Expedition Commission.

An example of the specialized Indiana license plates that help raise funds for the state’s Lewis and Clark Expedition Commission. 1803, by the way, refers to the year when the explorers traveled the Ohio and Mississippi rivers on their way west. And, of course, “LC” refers to Lewis and Clark.

In another interesting tactic, Yeager and husband Ray held annual Kentucky Derby parties with Lewis and Clark themes, a public relations effort to acquaint influential people about the local importance of the expedition. At first blush, tying Lewis and Clark to the nearby famous horse race may seem like a stretch, but there is an unusual connection. Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is held in Louisville, was developed by William Clark’s grandson, Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr.

The Kentucky Derby story “made for a fun time,” Yeager said, “and it helped us tell the story of Lewis and Clark in our area.”

{Read two articles about the involvement of Phyllis Yeager and others in the Eastern Legacy and bicentennial celebration}

One of Yeager’s favored keepsakes from her Eastern Legacy volunteer work is an autograph of Stephen E. Ambrose in her copy of Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the West. For many Lewis and Clark fans, Ambrose’s book is the bible of the Lewis and Clark’s story.

Knowing that Yeager resided in the Clarksville area, Ambrose signed his name on the page that has this important statement about the meeting of Lewis and Clark in Clarksville: “When they shook hands, the Lewis and Clark Expedition began.”

This shaking of the hands occurred in October 1803 after Lewis arrived in Clarksville. There he met up with Clark, who was living in the home of his older brother, Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark. This meeting was the first opportunity Lewis and Clark had to talk face-to-face about the impending journey. Until then, the two friends, who knew each other from serving in the army years earlier, had only corresponded about the expedition by mail.

The image of the handshake has become a major theme in promoting Lewis and Clark in the Ohio River region of Indiana and Kentucky. A museum in the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville features an exhibit on the topic while an outside bronze statute by the late Carol Grende portrays the two men shaking hands. Yeager, who has written a book about the statue (The Story of the Lewis and Clark Statue), helped arrange the creation and acquisition of the statue. This October 20th a festival celebrating the 215th anniversary of the handshake will be held at the park.

No one knows for sure whether the two men actually shook hands. But the handshake is a good story and a significant image to think about.

At the Falls of the Ohio: Carol Grende’s statue of Lewis and Clark shaking hands.

Whether the expedition actually began with the handshake is a matter that Lewis and Clark buffs sometimes debate. Some strongly believe the journey began in Pittsburgh; others, in the nation’s Capitol when Congress appropriated funds. Or did the expedition begin in the mind of Thomas Jefferson in his earlier years when he daydreamed about the expansion of the United States into the West? The answer: No one knows. But it’s a fun issue to ponder.

However they greeted each, Lewis and Clark would have intensely focused on planning and practical matters as they slowly traveled the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Conversations would have centered on boats and equipment, food and other supplies, and the grit of men recruited along the way. They also would have discussed weapons, gunpowder, and the need for military readiness.

They honed skills they knew would be needed in the wilderness: navigating flowing waters, sawyers, and sandbars, and techniques for mapping land and waterways. They probably discussed the diplomacy of interacting with natives and the collecting of specimens of plants and animals. They wrote in their journals, entries that have delighted and captured the imagination of generations of Americans.

It was time well-spent and helped to ensure the expedition’s success—significant reasons for now extending the current historic trail to include the 1,200 miles of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

{Interested in offering your views on the trail extension legislation? Contact your U.S. Senators. Here’s how…}

Iconic portraits of Lewis and Clark painted in 1807 by Charles Willson Peale. Courtesy of ExplorePAhistory.com and Independence National Historical Park.