LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION

(180406), first U.S. overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. It was conducted under the leadership of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark. Preparations for the expedition were initiated by President Thomas Jefferson before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. All members of the expedition, numbering about 40 and ranging in age from 29 to 33 years, had had vigorous outdoor training and were variously skilled in botany, meteorology, zoology, celestial navigation, Indian sign language, carpentry, gun repair, and boat handling. After a winter near St. Louis spent in military training and in gathering supplies and equipment, the group started up the Missouri River in three boats on May 14, 1804. En route, they supplemented their pork, flour, salt, and biscuits with wild game and fish. By November they had made the difficult ascent of the Missouri to what later became North Dakota. There they built a small fort and spent a comfortable winter among the friendly Mandan Sioux. Before leaving the next spring, Lewis and Clark employed a French-Canadian interpreter, Toussaint Charbonneau, who brought along his Indian wife, Sacajawea, and their infant son. Sacajawea also served as an interpreter and helped win the friendship of the Shoshoni Indians. The expedition pushed westward to what is now Montana. Obtaining horses, they traveled over the Continental Divide to arrive at the headwaters of the Clearwater River. There canoes were built to carry them down the Clearwater to the Snake River and then to the mouth of the Columbia, which they reached on November 15. After building Fort Clatsop, where they wintered, the explorers began their return trip the following March, traveling via the Marias and Yellowstone rivers, continuing downstream on the Missouri, and arriving amid much excitement at St. Louis on Sept. 23, 1806. Following Jefferson's instructions, Lewis and Clark brought back diaries and maps that contained much information. They did much to dispel ignorance about the area, especially the myth of an easy water crossing of the continent (the long-sought Northwest Passage). The journals include accounts of many stirring adventures. Considering that the expedition encountered hostile Indians, accidents, sickness, grizzly bears and rattlesnakes, exposure, and near starvation, it is remarkable that only one member died en route. The two leaders were each given 1,600 acres (650 hectares) of public land, and each of their men received 320 acres (130 hectares) and double pay. Lewis later became the governor of the Louisiana Territory and Clark of the Missouri Territory.