Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

This is my last post about Lewis and Clarke’s expedition toward the western coast. Following them to some of the towns and sites that the captains had discovered made me feel grounded in my adopted country, made the land real for me.

To continue, on September 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis. An excerpt from Lewis’s letter to President Jefferson reads: “Sir, it is with pleasure that I announce to you the safe arrival of myself and party with our papers and baggage. No accident has deprived us of a single member of our party since I last wrote you from the Mandan in April 1804.”

In his reply the President wrote: “I received, my dear Sir, with unspeakable joy your letter of September 23 announcing the return of yourself, Captain Clarke & your party in good health to St. Louis… The length of time without hearing from you had begun to be felt awfully…”

The journals of Lewis and Clark include drawings and descriptions of animals, birds, and plants then unknown to the western world, vocabularies of dozens of Indian languages, and maps for thousands of miles of rivers and mountains. The crew achieved what they had set out to do, focused on an impossible mission, and returning home triumphant. I felt so fortunate to have touched part of their journey.

The twin towns of Lewiston, Idaho, and Clarkston, Washington, our last stops, commemorate the two captains and are located on opposite banks of the Columbia River. Here we rode a speed boat through Hells Canyon, North America’s deepest river gorge, nearly 2,000 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon. The ride felt so ordinary as compared to what the two captains had experienced that I kept marveling at their audacity and endurance.

Experiencing a part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition showered me with gold dust of America-in-the-making, when the country was still emerging like the peaks of the Grand Canyons at sunrise. Up until then I had considered myself a world citizen. Yet, by the end of the journey the trunk of my life’s tree felt rooted in American soil. Its branches that spread out into the world will continue to grow and flourish but it’s America that I find beautiful! It’s America that I’m proud to call home.

Please share any thoughts you have been having about my emails to you about Lewis and Clarks’ expedition and my experiences with the journey that covered parts of it.