The Journals of Lewis and Clark

An in-depth look at Lewis and Clark's historic expedition through the explorers' journals--America's first report on the West (Bernard DeVoto, Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar-historian of the American West).In 1803, the great expanse of the Louisiana Purchase was an empty canvas. Keenly aware that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward--and that a Voyage of Discovery would be necessary to determine the nature of the frontier--President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide Sacajawea, and thirty-two men, Lewis mapped rivers, traced the principal waterways to the sea, and established the American claim to the territories of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.Together the captains kept this journal: a richly detailed record of the flora and fauna they sighted, the native tribes they encountered, and the awe-inspiring landscape they traversed, from their base camp near present-day St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, which has become an incomparable contribution to the literature of exploration and the writing of natural history.