Rivers were once highways into the interior of the American continent. Yet the routes they provided were never easy to follow. Lewis and Clark relied on sextant and starlight to determine locations, meticulously plotting each day's course to create maps. Navigating rivers was an exercise in discipline and endurance - moving through extreme temperatures, scouting unknown terrain and battling thick clouds of mosquitos. To descend the Columbia River the expedition shot through rapids and plunged over falls, uncertain if their daring venture would end in wreckage ("This river in general is very handsome, except at the rapids, where it is risking both life and property to pass," wrote expedition member Patrick Gass about the Columbia River in 1805).
Travel along the Missouri, Yellowstone and Columbia rivers dramatically increased after the expedition, though immense dangers still faced travelers. From the 1820s through the 1880s steamboats took settlers and fur trappers from St. Louis westward - across high plains toward the Rocky Mountains. Traveling this river route was both uncomfortable and perilous. Half buried logs called 'snags' punctured and sank boats, boilers exploded, ice cracked hulls and boats ran aground in shallow currents. Hundreds of steamboats sank along the Missouri River. In the 1860s railways began winding through frontier land - offering cheaper fares, greater comfort and lower cargo rates. With the coming of rail, many inland rivers - including the Missouri - lost their appeal as major transportation routes.
The task of moving along Western waterways was simplified over time: complex navigation tools now let river pilots meander with ease along channeled waterways. Barge routes on the Missouri, Columbia and Snake Rivers are engineered to optimize traffic control. Creating these channels began as ad hoc efforts. They later resulted from careful designs intended to control the flow of these rivers. Yet these channels dramatically impact shoreline ecosystems, creating huge problems that agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers grapples with today.
Rather than retracing the exact route of Lewis and Clark, the author's intent was to explore some of the rivers this group traveled along. Instead of traveling along the Snake River, for example, he followed the Columbia River in its entirety (from its source at Lake Columbia in Canada). This map shows the three rivers explored by the author: the Missouri, Yellowstone and Columbia. |
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