There are lots of things that have happened throughout history, many of them being unpleasant. All of them have brought us to this moment right now, and, of course, that is a good place even with its terrifying emotions and its pleasant emotions. One of those historical events that has put me here at this point is the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Corps of Discovery.
All through childhood
I knew about these two great explorers because I live right in that part of
Idaho where they journeyed. They and their crew were the first Americans to
traverse the continent and cross the continental divide to make it to the
Pacific. They were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and because of
that willingness to explore the unknown expanses of the northern Great Plains,
the northern Rockies and the Pacific Northwest I am living in this part of what
is now the United States. The whole discovery is a connection of peoples from
the King of France who gave a good deal to the United States with the Louisiana
Purchase to the willing explorers, the friendliness of the indigenous peoples,
to those of us living here in the present. Of course they were all human beings
as are we. We are filled with complexity and because of that, not everything
from what we do works out for the best just like that journey of discovery. It
is the existential crisis of being human but it is also what got us to where we
are. I very much appreciate the struggles that Lewis and Clark endured, the
sense of responsibility that they carried and the huge gift they gave their
posterity, one of which is me.
Among the Corps were
such people that legends are made of. There was the French Charbonneau and his
Shoshone wife, Sacajawea who was born in what is now Idaho and graces her name
to several things in this state. The man York, who was enslaved by William
Clark, probably experienced the greatest freedom of his life in those two years
of exploration. Others in the Corps returned out west later to gain fame as the
mountain men. And the journalists themselves, Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark themselves, left us amazing drawings during their time fording great
rivers, crossing the divide of the continent with all its struggles, spending a
dreary damp winter on the shores of the Pacific, meeting with the many amazing
tribes of indigenous people who befriended them, and then returning all that
distance back to the little outpost of St. Louis. All of these men and one
woman formed an indelible relationship with one another and the land that has
enriched these United States and the peoples of the northern states of the
west.
I have such admiration
for the foundations of our country, in spite of all it’s heartache, and the
great men and women seeking independence and freedom with all their baggage of
wrongly preconceived ideas. In spite of all their flaws they created this
country out of pain and struggle and they left their unfinished work for us to
continue to be “We, the people of the United States…” I am overwhelmed by pride
and admiration for these amazing people of the Corps of Discovery.
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