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Discovering Lewis and Clark again
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| Audience members take a look at
examples of furs, candles and clothing that men on
the more than two-year Lewis and Clark expedition
would have used. About 25 people attended the
presentation last Tuesday. Umpqua Post Photos by
Jolene Guzman | |
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By Jolene Guzman, Staff Writer
Sgt. Greg Olson can dish the
details on Lewis and Clark.
His retelling is more than
just the timeline of the journey that Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark led from 1803 to 1806 or a recounting of its
historical significance. Olson's account tells the stories of
chance and determination that keep the expedition, considered
a suicide mission by many, from derailing.
Olson and
Capt. Erin Bagely, both from the Oregon Army National Guard
Heritage Outreach Program, shared some of those stories in a
presentation titled “The Corps of Discovery” at the Umpqua
Discovery Center last Tuesday evening.
Olson has given
presentations for the outreach program since March 2004.
Bagely has been with the program for two years. The pair give
about 150 presentations a year, mostly in schools.
Even
after that many presentations, the material hasn't gotten
stale. In fact, Olson said he is still learning about the
historic journey and the people who made it happen.
The
purpose of the venture wasn't new in the history of North
American exploration. People had been looking for what was
called the Northwest passage, or a water route from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean for decades, Olson said.
“Ever since the day after Columbus landed
in the Cuba area, they had been looking for this easy route to
the Pacific,” Olson explained. “Nobody really expected a water
route to go from ocean to ocean, but (President Thomas)
Jefferson hoped there would be an easy voyage in those stone
mountains he had heard about.”
The “stone mountains”
was the name Jefferson used for the Rocky Mountains. He was
after much more than the passage, or even a piece of the
thriving beaver and sea otter pelt trade.
Jefferson
wanted the Missouri River mapped and detailed information
about the terrain, the weather and the plants and animals the
expedition encountered. This information would be used to
determine if people could move west and settle the
land.
But he also was interested in the people already
living on the land. Jefferson was intrigued with the idea that
Native Americans could somehow be connected to Europe or the
Middle East, Olson said. He sent a vocabulary list to compare
languages and instructed Lewis to study Native American
traditions to find any similarity to European
culture.
Jefferson's detailed instructions also
included a description of the type of men Lewis and Clark
could take on the trip.
“Unmarried men under the age of
35 - that was his criteria,” Olson said.
They didn't want the men to get homesick,
but also this trip was considered a no-return voyage for most
of the volunteers.
Many members of Congress, who had to
authorize the military mission, thought this fate would
include Lewis. Those who knew him feared his infamous bad
temper might get him killed before completing the mission,
Olson noted.
Completing the mission meant
survival.
One member key to crew survival almost died
before joining the journey.
Sakagawea, then just 14
years old, nearly died giving birth to her son Jean Baptiste
before Lewis and Clark left the Mandan villages in North
Dakota in the spring of 1805. Just as Lewis had given her up
for dead, she recovered. Lewis' journal noted that a tea made
of rattlesnake tail may have saved her.
Olson said
Sakagawea's ability as a guide wasn't what made her so
important to the expedition. She was far too young when
captured and taken from her home in Western Montana to
remember enough about terrain to be a guide.
What she did was show the men how to
survive the journey.
“She showed them how to improve
their diet,” Olson said.
Sakagawea picked edible plants
to demonstrate how the men could supplement their all-meat
diet. Each man consumed an average of more than 9 pounds of
meat per day.
“They were showing signs of scurvy ... so
she was a hero right off the bat, even though she didn't get
credit for it until years later,” Olson said.
In
another example of Lewis and Clark's extraordinary luck,
Sakagawea also helped them obtain the horses they needed to
cross the Rocky Mountains. When asked to translate during a
meeting with a Shoshone chief, Sakagawea recognized the man as
her long-lost older brother. This twist of fate assured the
expedition the horses it needed.
But it wasn't all good
fortune for Lewis and Clark.
The group had plenty brushes with death
from snakebites, bear attacks, starvation, severe weather and
dangerous terrain, Olson said. Remarkably, only one member of
the expedition died - Sgt. Charles Floyd, of an apparent case
of appendicitis.
Upon return, the men were paid $5 for
every month of the trip. That was a bonus for some of the men,
as privates in the military were paid only $2.50 per month at
the time.
Many of the mission crew, including Lewis,
died less than a decade after returning.
“None of them
really lived to be old men, except for Clark and (Sgt.
Charles) Gass,” Olson said.
But both Olson and Bagely
said what they like most about giving the Lewis and Clark
presentation is going into the schools and getting kids
excited about something that might otherwise be just another
history lesson.
“The best part is working with the
kids,” Bagely said, adding that some students recognize them
for previous presentations. “They will come up to you and say
‘Hey you are one of those (Lewis and Clark) guys.'”
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