Lewis and Clark Expedition

So...

Lewis and Clark, right? When the United States under President Thomas Jefferson completed what was called the Louisiana Purchase.

So the...

Here, I'm pulling up a picture of the map so everybody can see it.

And he authorized spending, again, this is back then, authorized spending just north of a million dollars in order to buy just new orleans just new orleans that's it why was new orleans so important well because of it's where it sits upon the mississippi river which was incredibly important for trade in the middle of the united states so at that point the united states essentially stopped at the mississippi river and when the delegates went over to go meet with france and say hey can we purchase new orleans from you what do you think about this port city that's going to help us control the river the french came back with something they were not expecting and the french said what if we give you the entire louisiana territory for seven million so they were authorized to spend over a million dollars for just new orleans and you can see it on the map what if we give you all of it for just over seven million They said, okay, and instantly doubled the size of the country.

The problem was Thomas Jefferson said, well, okay, we just bought all this.

Now we got to find out what we bought and brought in Lewis and Clark.

to go upon their great expedition to go and document what's out there, what is in this territory that we went and just purchased.

The Cloud Peak Wilderness is the centerpiece of a roadless block of land that's almost 200,000 acres in size, making it one of the single largest wilderness areas in the entirety of North America.

If ever we were going to get the full Lewis and Clark experience, it was there.

So late one spring, we met up in a small town called Buffalo before heading out into the mountains.

The Cloud Peak trip happened in 2013 and we were both pretty experienced outdoorsmen by that point, so at first, marching off into the trees just felt like business as usual.

Yeah, I was so lucky to be there.

So we were doing Columbia Snake with American Cruise Line, the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Very, very popular cruise.

But we ended at the coast, right? The mouth of the Columbia River, which is where Astoria is.

Well, it's going to turn into the Pacific Fur Company.

But it's established in 1811.

Lewis and Clark are out there about 1806, but you can imagine it's been around for a very long time.

This is a very old area and a lot of trading because of its waterway.

Hey there, it's Jody Avirgan, and this is Some Sunday Context, where we bring you episodes new and from the archives to try and give you some context for what we are up to on our show with our America 250 series.

Now, this past week, as you heard, we did a two-parter about Lewis and Clark, how they teamed up, what Thomas Jefferson sent them out west to find, what went down on that trip.

Today, an episode we recorded just last year about what happened when they returned, and moreover, how the myth of Lewis and Clark built and built over the course of decades and even centuries because, as you'll hear, they weren't always seen as great American icons.

It's a fascinating story of how we choose to frame history.

So we're excited to bring it to you.

And of course, support the show.

You can do that at thisdaypod.com. Coming up next week, we talk Ross Perot.

But in the meantime, here we go with our episode about the myth of Lewis and Clark.

She already had one child, carrying her infant on her back.

She was the only guide on Lewis and Clark's schlep from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

This was a tough lady.

She was born 1788 in Lemhi County, Idaho, which even out-of-towners know is a big schlep from Coney Island.

We haven't heard it for a while.

But now again, it is being reprised.

on PBS and C-SPAN in, quote, rediscovering Lewis and Clark.

Experts are discussing the 1804 expedition and Sacagawea, if I don't mispronounce it, the Native American guide who was crucial to its success.

Before we dive headlong into Jefferson's second term, a road which will lead us to the War of 1812, I think it's fitting that since Hamilton exited our narrative in this episode, that we do the same with Burr.

Following Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American Northwest, there was an interest in the southwest of the continent.

Several expeditions tried to find the source of the Red River, which is located in the modern state of Oklahoma, which caused trouble with the Spanish.

This was followed by an expedition into Colorado, where Zebulon Pike attempted to summit the peak, now known as Pike's Peak, before being captured by the Spanish.