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| Editor | Anthony Brandt |
| First Written | 1804 |
| Genre | Travel |
| Origin | US |
| Publisher | National Geographic |
| My Copy | National Geographic hardcover |
| First Read | April 29, 2018 |
The Journals of Lewis and Clark
Also! I have two very good friends named Lewis and Clark, and it was unavoidable - and hilarious - to compare them.
Noted on May 29, 2018
This was really fun! Big praise is due to the editor, who took Lewis & Clark's dozens of volumes of journals and edited them down to 500 pages of action and drama. For a kid who grew up in St. Louis, I heard a lot about L&C. We studied them in school, but there are eponymous things all around, too. Parks, apartments, heck - the Arch itself is the Jefferson National Expansion memorial.
But the book was thrilling, if you spent the time actually imagining what they went through: uncharted territory, shaky truces with Native Americans, discoveries of all kinds of plants and animals (including a ton of run-ins with GRIZZLIES.) This was the sort of book that every ten pages I had to turn to Erika and say, "Did you know..."
Noted on May 29, 2018
[June 14, 1805. Lewis] ... It now seemed to me that all the beasts of the neighborhood had made a league to destroy me, or that some fortune was disposed to amuse herself at my expense.
Quoted on May 30, 2018
A curious custom with the Sioux as well as the Arikaras is to give handsome squaws to those whom they wish to show some acknowledgements to. The Sioux we got clear of without taking their squaws. They followed us with squaws two days. The Arikaras we put off during the time we were at the towns, but two handsome young squaws were sent by a man to follow us. They came up this evening and persisted in their civilities.
Quoted on May 30, 2018
[May 20, 1804. Lewis] St. Charles is situated on the North bank of the Missouri 21 Miles above it's junction with the Mississippi, and about the same distance N. W. from St. Louis; it is bisected by one principal street about a mile in length running nearly parallel with the river...The Village contains a chapel, one hundred dwelling houses, and about 450 inhabitants; their houses are generally small and but ill constructed; a great majority of the inhabitants are miserably poor, illiterate and when at home excessively lazy, tho' they are polite hospitable and by no means deficient in point of natural genius.
Quoted on May 30, 2018
[May 14, 1804, Clark] I set out at 4pm in the presence of many of the neighboring inhabitants, and proceeded on under a gentle breeze up the Missouri to the upper point of the first island four miles and camped on the island, which is situated close to the right (or starboard) side and opposite the mouth of a small creek called Coldwater. A heavy rain this afternoon. [I grew up near Coldwater Creek!]
Quoted on May 30, 2018