Here in Great Falls, Montana, Lewis and Clark got both good and bad news. The good news: they found the falls that proved that this was the correct path at a fork in the river to follow the Missouri. The bad news: the Indians had told them about one set of falls, but there were really five falls along the Missouri in a short span, which meant they couldn't take their canoes and would have to go by land to get around the falls. 
And how do we know that? We spent a few hours at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/lewisclark/lcic/index.html) - another really great museum. It's run by the Forest Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jeff noted that it was a Forest Service operation where there was no forest, and he had a point. There weren't really any trees around. But I digress...
The museum featured a video by Ken Burns on the Lewis and Clark expedition, and another video specifically on the portage at Great Falls. Another history tidbit: Lewis and Clark thought it would only take a day or so to bypass the falls by land. Instead, it took a month to get their canoes and supplies up out of the river, over the hilly ground and back down into the water downstream of the falls. Then Sacagawea got sick, but was healed with sulfurous water from a spring right near Great Falls.
Some other tidbits of information we picked up today:
Lewis was nearly killed by a grizzly bear while doing some scouting on the expedition. He had no bullets in hus gun, so he tried to outrun the bear and headed for the river. The bear chased him and reared up. Lewis held up his gun and waved his other arm, and by some act of sheer luck, the bear decided to back off and leave him alone.
Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian who was kidnapped before she was a teenager by another tribe. She was married to a French fur trader and was pregnant when Lewis and Clark met her and invited her to join the expedition. When they got to the end of the Missouri River and realized that instead of flat plains on the way to the Pacific there was another set of mountains, they knew they needed horses. They were on Shoshone land, so one of them went ahead to go barter for horses. It wasn't going so well with the tribe's chief. Then Sacagawea arrived with the rest of the Corps members, and as she interpreted for them, she realized that the chief was her brother. After a happy reunion, they got the horses and a guide.
Oh, and her name is not pronounced SAC-ah-ja-wEE-a, it's pronounced sa-CA-ga-waya.
Ruth and Henry took up the guide's offer to get Junior Explorer Badges and did all the research to get it done. They really seemed to enjoy it.
And how do we know that? We spent a few hours at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/lewisclark/lcic/index.html) - another really great museum. It's run by the Forest Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Jeff noted that it was a Forest Service operation where there was no forest, and he had a point. There weren't really any trees around. But I digress...
The museum featured a video by Ken Burns on the Lewis and Clark expedition, and another video specifically on the portage at Great Falls. Another history tidbit: Lewis and Clark thought it would only take a day or so to bypass the falls by land. Instead, it took a month to get their canoes and supplies up out of the river, over the hilly ground and back down into the water downstream of the falls. Then Sacagawea got sick, but was healed with sulfurous water from a spring right near Great Falls.
Some other tidbits of information we picked up today:
Lewis was nearly killed by a grizzly bear while doing some scouting on the expedition. He had no bullets in hus gun, so he tried to outrun the bear and headed for the river. The bear chased him and reared up. Lewis held up his gun and waved his other arm, and by some act of sheer luck, the bear decided to back off and leave him alone.
Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian who was kidnapped before she was a teenager by another tribe. She was married to a French fur trader and was pregnant when Lewis and Clark met her and invited her to join the expedition. When they got to the end of the Missouri River and realized that instead of flat plains on the way to the Pacific there was another set of mountains, they knew they needed horses. They were on Shoshone land, so one of them went ahead to go barter for horses. It wasn't going so well with the tribe's chief. Then Sacagawea arrived with the rest of the Corps members, and as she interpreted for them, she realized that the chief was her brother. After a happy reunion, they got the horses and a guide.
Oh, and her name is not pronounced SAC-ah-ja-wEE-a, it's pronounced sa-CA-ga-waya.
Ruth and Henry took up the guide's offer to get Junior Explorer Badges and did all the research to get it done. They really seemed to enjoy it.
Then we went down the road to check out the falls, which were just as Lewis and Clark described them.
Here's a picture of a flower that was growing outside of the museum - it was one of my favorites on the trip:
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