True American Pride - Real Things to Celebrate About This Nation (#9)
The True Voyage was the One Within Ourselves
"Ocian in view! O! the Joy" "This great Pacific Octean which we been So long anxious to See. and the roreing or noise made by the waves brakeing on the rockey Shores (as I Suppose) may be heard distictly!" (William Clark)
"We proceeded on." (Meriwether Lewis)
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and Sacagjawea
On Day 9 of my True American Pride month I celebrate the adventurers and explorers who helped open this great country to the rest of its citizens. These men were brave, tough and resourceful, and curious. And their efforts encouraged other American men and women to "Go West" to find new lives and success. This has alway been a true American impulse.
My favorite explorers were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Their bold expedition to travel from Missouri to the Pacific Ocean is truly something inspiring to read about!
In the two years, four months, and 10 days of their journey (May 14, 1804-Sept 23 1806), the Corps of Discovery (as they called themselves) travelled over 8,000 miles: up the Missouri River, across the Continental Divide, and down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.
The expedition contributed significant geographic and scientific knowledge of the West, aided the expansion of the fur trade, and strengthened U.S. claims to the Pacific. Clark’s maps portraying the geography of the West, printed in 1810 and 1814, were the best available until the 1840s.
These two leaders only lost one man during the whole trip; recorded diligently volumes of information on the wildlife and geography they traversed, and got along with the Native American tribes they met along the way. Total cost of the expedition was about $38,000 (roughly $945,000 today). A truly great achievement.
You can see today a statue commemorating Lewis and Clark at the end point of their journey westward at Seaside OR. I've been there. Thanks to Americans like these two the beauty of the Pacific Ocean is something that Americans like me can still enjoy today.
My favorite book on the exploits of these two American heroes in Dayton Duncan’s “Out West” (pub. 1987).
The following summary from “Goodreads” describes vividly why I liked it so:
“One hundred and eighty years after Lewis and Clark's “Voyage of Discovery” (1804–1806), Dayton Duncan set out in a Volkswagen camper to retrace their steps. “Out West” is an account of Duncan's retracing of the historic trail, now in various ways tamed, paved, and settled; and the journey of the American West in the years in between. Readers traveling with Duncan will encounter the people who inhabit today's farmers and ranchers, cowboys and mountain men, Native Americans, residents of dying small towns, city dwellers who have survived cycles of boom and bust. From the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to the Oregon coast, readers will be treated to a landscape as variously impressive as its people.”
“The glory of the journey is not in the destination, but in the experiences we gather along the way.” (Meriwether Lewis)
May we all carry that same spirit with us today!