The weather didn’t cooperate on our recent camping trip to Oregon. No beach walks or forest strolls. But we had a Plan B: Lewis and Clark National Historic Park, a collection of sites that honors the explorations of the Corps of Discovery in Oregon and Washington at the mouth of the Columbia River.
From 1804 to 1806 the 31 member expedition, led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, explored territories west of the Mississippi River largely unknown to white settlers. The Lewis and Clark Expedition produced early maps of the western territories as well as providing extensive scientific identification of flora and fauna. It was an epic, fascinating journey.
The Corps wintered at Fort Clatsop from December 1805 to March 1806. The original fort has vanished but a reconstruction from Clark’s journal imagines the fort as it likely was.
The Corps of Discovery spent 100 days at the fort and it rained every day but 12. We experienced the fort under authentic conditions. It was pouring rain.