Clearwater & Snake Rivers

Before dawn we were docked in Clarkston, Washington, and early morning folks were out for a leg-stretching powerwalk…for about fifteen minutes. It was 38 degrees outside when I made the morning update on our location and status. A bit early in the year for such temperatures was the sage head-nodding from all the locals we ran across, and during the day it warmed up only marginally towards the late afternoon. It was worth it, however, because of the clear skies and the sunshine illuminating the basalt colonnades, pale gold hills and blue and green waters of the rivers.

One group was accompanied by Linwood Laughy along the Clearwater River (blue water), the route the Corps of Discovery followed the fall of 1805 and the spring of 1806. Through the journals written by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, as well as other members of the corps, we attempted to imagine what it would have been like to walk in their moccasins, and tried to understand the hardships they suffered on their journey to and from the mouth of the Columbia River. Lee Hamilton, an expert in outdoor survival techniques, taught us to make fire, a handy skill if we were to have really joined the Corps along on their trip over the Bitterroot Mountains in 1805!

Meanwhile another group of folks were speeding along in jet boats up the Snake River (green water). The Snake takes a turn south at Lewiston, Idaho, and heads into Hell’s Canyon. The deepest canyon in North America, it is deceiving in that the top cannot be seen from the river itself, yet steep-sided basalt cliffs provide dramatic relief as these shallow-keeled boats move over fluttering rapids and rough-looking whitewater.

Both expeditions met at the Nez Perce National Historical Park in the late afternoon before returning home to learn a bit more about the Nez Perce people, or Nimiipu. It made sense to make a stop here, since we had been traveling all day in their traditional homeland. By now we had had time to hear about these people who helped the Corps survive unimaginable trying times. We know today that the Corps would not have survived at all if it hadn’t been for the helping hands of the Nimiipu, and our history would have been much, much different.

Once on board, the ship set off downriver, our last, longest journey yet, to close the circle of the expedition in Portland.