In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark

by Wallace G. Lewis

  These and similar activities were dependent on the enthusiasm of Lewis and Clark buffs and others who had long sought to institutionalize a national trail. It seems doubtful that a top-down campaign by the federal government could have maintained interest at such a high pitch through the late 1960s and early 1970s or acted as quickly to preserve threatened landmarks. For example, a group of concerned citizens, led by one-time president of the Montana Historical Society E. E. MacGilvra, sought to save Beaverhead Rock from partial demolition. The rock, located near Twin Bridges northeast of Dillon, was famous as a landmark Sacagawea recognized as the Corps of Discovery moved past the forks of the Jefferson River on August 8, 1805, thereby assuring the explorers that they were close to the ultimate source of the Missouri and to Sacagawea’s people. In 1970 most of Beaverhead Rock was on private property and destined to be quarried for “rip-rap,” rocks used to line riverbanks. A Butte newspaper claimed that Meriwether Lewis had carved his name on the rock face but that it had been obliterated sometime before 1970 by blasting at the site. Public “resentment” and a letter to the property owner from Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana led to a halt of the blasting, and eventually the site was nominated for protection as a National Historic Place.70

  While much of the post-commission activity took place at the local and regional levels, the task of developing a plan for legislation to create a national trail fell to the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation within the Department of the Interior. During the early 1970s the bureau began to investigate a way to fit the Lewis and Clark route within the recently enacted National Trails System. The study, which would define “the associated scenic, historic, natural, cultural, and recreational qualities which establish the national significance of the route,” focused primarily on the “main river courses . . . within a 10-mile corridor,” adhering “as accurately as practicable to the main historic route.” One of the criteria for National Scenic Trails was “national significance.” The “scenic, historical, natural, or cultural qualities of the areas through which” the trails passed were to be superior to, presumably, run-of-the-mill trails: “National scenic trails should, with optimum development, be capable of promoting interest and drawing power that could extend to any section of the conterminous United States.” Trails “of major historic significance should adhere as accurately as possible to their main historic route or routes.” National Scenic Trails were to be several hundred miles long and “primarily land based.” Further, they were required to be continuous—that is, not intermittent—and to have access from other trails “at reasonable intervals” as well as allowing for “trips of shorter duration.” By 1975 the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail had been so designated, and numerous candidates other than the Lewis and Clark route were being studied—including the Mormon, Santa Fe, Continental Divide, Natchez Trace, Oregon, and Alaska Gold Rush trails. But it was becoming apparent that large segments of the Lewis and Clark trail did not qualify as “land based national scenic trail.” Little of the trail had potential for bicycling or hiking, for example, except in specific locales such as parks. However, a “historic” trail alternative soon came into being that would permit a different conception of what constituted a national trail.71

  The adoption of a National Historic Trail and Travelway category provided for extended routes that were hundreds of miles long. Portions would be used for foot or non-motorized travel, travel along or on waterways, or motorized travel along marked public highways and roads. The trails’ national historic significance would be sufficiently documented, and they would be marked by interpretive sites to “provide the user with the intangible elements of historic feeling and association.” In a preliminary report (1975), the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation recommended that while the entire 3,700-mile Lewis and Clark route should be so designated, development was to be restricted to 135 miles of land and 2,010 miles of water within twenty-one “selected federally administered and complementing State and locally administered components.” Considered a “travelway,” authorized segments of the Lewis and Clark route could fit into the designation under less restrictive criteria.

  As might be expected, the new routes authorized under this category by the U.S. Congress were to be “substantially of a historic nature” and to “possess exceptional values or qualities which illustrate or interpret the heritage of our Nation.” They would be either “recreation/interpretive” trails on which “only travel by foot, horseback, bicycle, or other non-motorized means would be permitted,” or they would comprise “selected public highways and roads approximating the historic alignment of a historic route and [be] marked to facilitate retracement of the route by motorized vehicle or bicycle.” They could also be a combination of the two. Segments of historic trails and travelways had to “retain much of their historic character” and be largely free of “man-made developments of a disruptive or distracting nature” to be considered. However, segments that ran through agricultural or otherwise developed areas could qualify if they contributed, through “proper interpretation,” to the trail user’s “knowledge of the country through which the trail passes.” Furthermore, although designated highways were expected to closely follow “the route’s historic location,” exceptions could be made “to maximize recreation opportunities.” The implementation of both historic trails and historic travelways was required to preserve wildlife habitat, “fragile areas of vegetation,” and archaeological sites, as well as historical sites. Most of the Lewis and Clark trail did not qualify “as a land based national scenic trail” since the expedition had traveled primarily by water, and it was doubtful that the public would make much use of any hiking trail that ran along the original route, even if only on the overland segment.

  Fig 5.2 An expedition to Beaverhead Rock near Twin Bridges, Montana, probably in the 1920s. The rock, an important landmark on the Lewis and Clark trail, was saved from blasting in 1970. Photographer unidentified. Courtesy, Montana Historical Society Research Center, Helena.

  By the time the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation’s final report was completed in April 1977, most of the states along the Lewis and Clark route had established related trail systems and completed the interpretive projects they had pledged to the National Lewis and Clark Commission in the 1960s. Much of the work had been done to locate and mark historical sites related to the expedition. Planned access roads and recreation areas had also been developed by the states, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers. The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation noted that although about 50,000 travelers intersected the trail routes every day by automobile, mostly on interstate highways, only a “very small percentage of the total use of the Lewis and Clark Trail [was] expected to come from people attempting to trace the entire route . . . an arduous task which takes several weeks and would not appeal to most trail users.”73

  The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail officially came into existence on November 10, 1978.74 The result on the middle Missouri River turned out to be a necessary compromise in many ways: a travelway rather than a scenic trail in the usual sense, a recreation ribbon through the Dakotas in a segment of the trail where proposed recreation sites outnumber located historical sites by a ratio of nearly three to one. Yet from both the ecological and historical points of view, significant efforts have been made to preserve portions of the river in a way that resembles its state at the time the Corps of Discovery passed along it. The Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri, the Hamburg Bend Wildlife Management Area in Nebraska, and the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa, for example, have resulted from cooperation among the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other federal and state agencies. Tasks include restoring habitat and countering the negative effects of channelization by digging “chutes,” or side channels, through some of the bends to form backwaters and wetlands, thereby allowing the river to “manage itself,” to some extent. More than thirty similar projects are planned for the lower Miss
ouri River. Many important historical locations have been spared inundation and remain available in free-flowing segments of the river above and below Bismarck, North Dakota, and downstream from Oahe and other dams. The 149-mile White Rocks section between Fort Benton and the head of Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana has been preserved as part of the National Wild Scenic River System, as have fifty-nine miles in South Dakota and Nebraska, downstream from Gavins Point Dam. Despite 100-foot-deep slack water from the Holter hydroelectric dam north of Helena, Montana, the Gates of the Mountains portion of the route looks much as it did when the expedition encountered it. The Three Forks of the Missouri, as well as the Jefferson River upstream, remain generally unspoiled.75

  Guidebooks and published accounts of automobile journeys along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail began to appear even before the trail bill was signed and rapidly proliferated as the nation prepared for the expedition’s bicentennial in 2003–2006, demonstrating the importance of motor routes for public appreciation of the new national trail and of autotourism for personal exploration of the West. In 1978, for example, Archie Satterfield, a member of the Washington State Lewis and Clark Trail Committee, published a short narrative on the expedition and an account of an automobile tour he and his family took from the Pacific Coast eastward along most of the Lewis and Clark route. Much of the book summarizes the history of the expedition, but in an appendix Satterfield describes the look of “the trail today,” in the tradition of Wheeler and Gray, and includes a series of maps depicting segments of the route and a key to trail sites and recreational areas and facilities.76

  On their journey east, the Satterfield family sought to explore the Lewis and Clark route (as well as provide grist for a book), but they did not pursue the quest as dedicated expedition buffs. As is the case with most vacationers who follow the trail, they were also looking for recreational opportunities and were selective in choosing which historical sites to visit. In his book, Satterfield offers a short, chatty narrative of his family’s summer trip to Missouri, which included inspection of only some segments of the Lewis and Clark route. He wrote that he did not recommend following “the exact route,” much of which he considered “uninteresting” (for example, the locations of Traveler’s Rest, Canoe Camp, and Camp Disappointment on Cut Bank Creek). “There is no sense of discovery involved,” he wrote, “while standing elbow-to-elbow with a crowd of people atop Pompey’s Pillar.” He was also unimpressed with Lolo Pass.77

  While it is not clear what qualifications a site had to possess to impart “moments of illumination” or a “sense of discovery,” the Satterfields went on to visit Giant Springs and the Great Falls of the Missouri, the Gates of the Mountains, and the general location of Camp Fortunate, vowing to hike up to Lemhi Pass on a future trip. From there they took in Yellowstone National Park before rejoining the trail at Livingston, Montana, and following the Yellowstone River down to Fort Union, near the location where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri: “We drove down the Missouri a few miles on a road so rough that we expected at almost any minute to find it dead-ending in some rancher’s corral.”78 The next day they drove to a point near Washburn, North Dakota, to see the replica of Fort Mandan built in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the McLean County Historical Society. After traveling south through Pierre, South Dakota, and Sioux City, Iowa, where they stopped to visit the Sergeant Floyd monument, Satterfield and his family left the Lewis and Clark route. “Below Sioux City,” Satterfield complained, “the Missouri River loses nearly all its remaining charm and becomes less and less a river. Instead, it is something of a liquid highway. So we gave up our diligent route tracing and drove directly south to visit my family.”79

  Much more thoughtful and introspective is the approach to tracing Lewis and Clark’s path by road and highway taken by author and filmmaker Dayton Duncan. Duncan expressed the feelings of many in his 1987 account, Out West: An American Journey: “The route I plan to take—and the spirit in which it is followed—will be the same as theirs. Nearly everything else will be vastly different.”80

  CHAPTER SIX

  Commemoration and Authenticity on the Trail

  EVEN BEFORE THE U.S. CONGRESS officially added the Lewis and Clark trail to the National Scenic Trail system, interest in the history of the expedition was heightened by the nation’s bicentennial, celebrated in 1976. Within a few years of that event, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation began to establish local chapters. Eventually, individual chapters all along the trail began to host the organization’s annual summer meetings, at which members attended lectures on various topics, watched costumed reenactments, visited nearby expedition sites, and socialized. In 1980, nearly two years after the creation of the National Historic Trail, Bert Hansen’s pageant was revived at the Three Forks of the Missouri. To commemorate the 175th anniversary of the expedition’s arrival at the headwaters, Nick Nixon of Bozeman, Montana, wrote and produced a revised version of the pageant, which was performed at Missouri Headwaters State Park on July 26 and 27, 1980.1 The performance by a cast of forty took place between the west side of Fort Rock and the river. The roles of “Sacajawea” and her brother Cameahwait were played by Oliviane Baier of Bozeman, a White Mountain Apache, and Rodger Spotted Eagle of Three Forks, a Blackfeet, while many other Native Americans appeared as villagers and Indian horseman. The same cast performed the pageant the following summer, aided by the Waa-No-Inee-Git Indian dancers.2

  While Native Americans participated in the expedition’s sesqui-centennial, major differences in their attitudes toward it and future events have developed over the past fifty years. The Salish Indians who took part in Bert Hansen’s 1955 pageants in Three Forks and Missoula, for example, added authenticity and color to what were essentially celebrations of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The same might be said of members of the Nez Perce tribe who camped that summer by the Clearwater River at Lewiston, Idaho, and of lower Columbia River Indians who appeared at sesquicentennial ceremonies in Astoria, Oregon. Those who claimed to be direct descendants of “Sacajawea” appeared as featured guests in major sesquicentennial functions and pageants. By the end of the twentieth century, however, Native Americans who lived along the route had become divided in their opinions about the upcoming bicentennial and of Lewis and Clark in general. These opinions ran the gamut from bitter opposition, on one hand, to a desire to at least share in the expected profits and to use the event as a springboard for educating non-Indians about Indian history.

  Even those who supported participation in the bicentennial argued that it should be a commemoration rather than a celebration. Their view, shared by bicentennial organizers, was that one commemorates an event or individuals to remember them in significant ways rather than necessarily to exalt them. There is often bitterness in recognizing the cost to Native American peoples of the expansion of white America that followed in the wake of the Corps of Discovery. The journals themselves offer cause for resentment: for example, the attitudes Clark expressed about the Teton band of Lakota that confronted the expedition in South Dakota or Lewis’s account of the fracas near the Marias River that resulted in the deaths of two Piegan Blackfeet warriors. A traditional Blackfeet explanation of what happened insists that the “warriors” were actually twelve-and thirteen-year-old boys who had been invited to camp overnight with Lewis and his men but who were attacked when they tried to leave during the night. This account denies, however, that the Piegans tried to steal a rifle and a horse. Morever, many Blackfeet today appear to regard Lewis and Clark with either indifference or anger—as insignificant or villainous.3

  This attitude is widely shared. At a 1992 conference at the University of Montana, held to discuss the expedition’s impact, scholar Betty White—a member of the Salish tribe—criticized the explorers for the way they dehumanized the native peoples they encountered, treating them as objects in the same cold, “scientific” way they treated plant specimens. White also excoriated the expedition for its mission to spy in the far West
in preparation for the ultimate conquest and destruction of the region’s native inhabitants.4 In 2004 a reenactment of the Corps of Discovery’s meeting with Teton Sioux at Fort Pierre, South Dakota, met with protest from twenty Lakota tribal members, one of whom carried an upside-down American flag and another a sign accusing the explorers of “genocide.” The group promised to carry on its protest at other commemorative reenactments upriver. Even tribal members who participated in the reenactment expressed agreement with the protesters.5

  As was the case with the paid Lakota reenactors at Fort Pierre, commemoration of historical events does not necessarily entail approval of those events, but it can offer profitable advantages and an opportunity to reassess the past.6 This was clearly evidenced in a resolution passed by the National Congress of American Indians in 2001 entitled “Preparation for, and the Safeguarding of, Native American Interests during the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration.” In addition to the demand that Indian peoples benefit economically from the festivities, the resolution, among other things, called for the opportunity to educate visitors about “culturally appropriate and legal conduct in, on and near Indian lands,” to “restore vitality to fragile and irreplaceable natural resources,” to “rejuvenate” native culture, and to “unite” native communities.7

  In addition to Native Americans’ points of view, an array of differing opinions regarding not only Lewis and Clark but commemorative heritage sites in general has arisen over the years since the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail came into being. In the introduction to their collection of essays on “American sacred space,” editors David Chidester and Edward T. Linenthal note that the movement to preserve and manage historical sites in an effort to promote “patriotic orthodoxy” and national unity has ignored diverse and competing views of history and of the sacredness of historical space.8