Lewis and Clark Slept Here....and so did Sue Sherman (Day 9)

This was the end of Lewis and Clark's westward journey.  They landed their canoes here to spend the winter.  Two weeks later Lewis & Clark would be standing on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.  They spent the next 106 days (of which 94 rained) preparing for their trip back to St. Louis, from which their journey began over two years earlier. 

This is a replica of the dugout canoes that Lewis and Clark's men built in Idaho to travel the perilous waters of the Clearwater & Snake Rivers.  However, they found that they were easily swamped and hard to maneuver on the wide Columbia.  In an account written by Clark, he said that the side of one of the dugout's sides split open and the bottom filled with water.  The men, some of which could not swim, hung onto the boat until they were rescued.  "Wouldn't you think....knowing how to swim would have been a prerequisite for a job that would take them nearly 4,000 miles, many of those miles on WATER!  They ended up acquiring a canoe from the Chinook Indians that... according to Clark's account, was calculated to ride the waves and carry immense weight.

It was from these huge pine trees that the dugout canoes were made.. They would shape the hulls with axes and then burn the insides out with a smoldering fire. Clark wrote that they built 5 dugout canoes in 10 days, despite the fact that all the men were sick.  No sick days on that job!

This is a replica of the fort that Lewis & Clark and his men built to spend the winter of 1805-1806.  They named it Fort Clatsop after the Indians that inhabited the area and came to the fort daily to visit and trade.  24 men squeezed into 3 small enlisted mens quarters, Lewis & Clark shared a room and Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea shared the other room.  Even though this is not the original fort, this replica was built in 2006 from the floor plan with demensions that Clark drew on the elkskin cover of one of his journals.

   This is definitely not a 5 star fort!  Where's the pillow?  the mattress?  the blanket?  Guess I shouldn't even ask if they have wi-fi.  You can never trust those travel brochures!