What did Lewis and Clark actually see in the Pacific Northwest in 1805?
Historian Stewart Holbrook has written that the headwaters of a river suggest something of the mystery of Genesis. The immense Columbia River takes on that mantle, with hamlets, vistas, and natural monuments that spring from pages of the Bible, and they glow in the Journals of Thomas Jefferson’s famous exploratory team, headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
After leaving the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers in October 1805, near today’s Pasco, Washington, the intrepid explorers marveled at “the number of dead salmon on the shores and floating in the river.” Lewis & Clark then drifted past the still-standing stone monuments at the narrowly dramatic Wallula Gap. The nearby Horse Heaven hills (today a plethora of vineyards), many of the original islands, cliffs, and huge shore boulders remain as they were seen by Lewis & Clark.
Although Celilo Falls has been inundated by The Dalles dam built in 1957, a nearby park and monument capture scenes of Native fishing at wild, precarious rapids that were challenged by the explorers’ party.
The twisting highway on the Washington state side offers Samuel Hill’s Maryhill Museum and a latter-day Stonehenge. From the wind-swept promontories that support these lonely attractions, visitors gaze on timeless topographical features.
Clark noted on November 4, 1805, “a full view of Mt. Helien’s” (today’s Mt. St. Helens), which he surmised might be the highest peak in North America. Of course, neighboring Mt. Rainier is higher and poor Mt. St. Helens blew her top many years ago.
Rain and more rain fell on the 1805 travelers, and that familiar precipitation followed them to the sea. On November 7 the 30-person Lewis & Clark party camped at Pillar Rock, near today’s town of Cathlamet, and excitedly exclaimed that they could see and hear the Pacific Ocean waves breaking the shore. That was a false alarm, since the Pacific cannot be seen or heard from this point, but a visitor should stop here and listen carefully. Something might cause our senses to experience the nearness of a great salt sea meeting an enormous wild river.
Through the winter rains Lewis & Clark saw rocks, great cliffs, and sandy shores at Cape Disappointment. After a two-week reconnaissance, the bedraggled party paddled across the river mouth and established winter headquarters at Fort Clatsop, which has been reconstructed to aid the imagination.
