Response to Questions

This entry is in response to comments and questions raised by some readers at the end of the last entry. I thought this might be of general interest.

Tourism everywhere is on the rise and makes up a large part of many states' and communities' industry and revenues. What is now called "heritage tourism" is big business, and so the states and their agencies, like humanities councils and historical societies, are willing to spend a great deal of money to upgrade facilities, replace old interpretive signs, etc.

As for L&C in particular: all along their route, the number of visitors has increased or is expected to increase 25-30 percent over a normal year. When I went to the planning workshops, some presentations were on mundane but crucial things like the anticipated need for more bathrooms and parking areas, as well as inexpensive souvenirs like refrigerator magnets, which tourists collect. There are millions of western history buffs out there buying the books and merchandise, even if they are not "doing the Trail." So while it may seem that in some parts of the country the L&C bicentennial is no big deal, here are huge numbers of people who think otherwise.

The centennial of the expedition and of the Louisiana Purchase was commemorated—in those days, unabashedly "celebrated"—by two enormous world fairs, one in St. Louis in 1904 and one in Portland in 1905. The old song lyrics "meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the fair" were written to promote the St. Louis event. Both events were very much in praise of "progress" and manifest destiny, as you can imagine.

Here in the Northwest, the L&C expedition and other westward migrations like the Oregon Trail have had interpretive facilities, roadside markers, and so forth, for a long time.

How interest in the country's past relates to concerns for its future . . . well, I'll have to think about that! Perhaps we invest so much interest and energy in the interpretation of our past because we can't bear to face the future. In a way, it’s a form of procrastination.

As for the Columbia River: I've traveled along many of the big rivers of our country and nothing compares to the lower Columbia for size. It's just so enormous! Below the Bonneville Dam, the river flows more or less within its natural banks, although these have been reinforced in places with rip rap, and there's been some fill here and there to support bridges and major highways. There are jetties at the mouth and the channel has been dredged from time to time. Come to think of it, a lot has been altered! But it’s nothing like what has been done to the lower Mississippi, which has been straightened and leveed until it's practically an artificial canal. (The upriver stretches of the Columbia are another matter, with their numerous dams and irrigation projects . . . .)

The other thing that's different about the rivers flowing into the Pacific from the coast mountain ranges is how fast they're flowing and how relatively straight they are, unlike the somewhat sluggish and meandering (once) lower Mississippi and the lower parts of the Missouri.

I read once that the Amazon pushes fresh water out into the Atlantic for a hundred miles or more. I imagine the Columbia does a similar thing. Captains Cook and Vancouver and other explorers suspected there was a major river along that part of the coast because of the volume of silty fresh water entering the sea, but no one (among these early sea captains) could find the outlet and cross the bar until Robert Gray in 1792.

On the Columbia, Lewis and Clark had a collection of dugout canoes they had made in Nez Perce country up on the Clearwater. They were serviceable, but were not of the more sophisticated design developed by the Indians that allowed the latter to navigate in all sorts of weather.

Another river tidbit: L&C went right past the Willamette River, which flows northward into the Columbia at Portland, OR, because they were hugging the northern shore of the Columbia and the mouth of the Willamette was hidden by islands. They passed it again on the way back, but because they knew there had to be a river there based on features of the land and characteristics of the water, they stopped and went back to look for it and at least mark its location.