Explorations Into the World of Lewis and Clark Volume 1/3

Book excerpt: Launched in 1803 by President Thomas Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was one of history’s most ambitious and successful explorations. Leading a permanent party of 33 on a 28-month journey of 8,500 miles, the intrepid Meriwether Lewis and his co-commander William Clark ascended the Missouri River into present-day Montana, crossed the Rocky Mountains, descended the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and returned safely with a wealth of new information about the wilderness interior of North America. Virtually every aspect of their momentous journey is covered in Explorations into the World of Lewis and Clark, a three-volume anthology of 194 articles (with 102 maps and illustrations) published between 1974 and 1999 in We Proceeded On, the quarterly journal of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. Contributors include a host of professional and avocational Lewis and Clark scholars, including John Logan Allen, Stephen E. Ambrose, Irving W. Anderson, Eldon G. Chuinard, Paul Russell Cutright, Dayton Duncan, James J. Holmberg, Arlen J. Large, and James P. Ronda. Subject categories, by volume: I: Before Lewis and Clark • Expedition Preparations • Expedition Personnel. II: People, Places, Things, and Events • Scientific Aspects of the Expedition. III: Journals, Letters, and Related Early Writings Immediately Following the Expedition • Lewis and Clark Trail Sites • Commemorations, Interpretations, and Depositories • Some Prominent Lewis and Clark Scholars.