Spanish, British, and French explorers reached the Pacific Northwest before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The American captains benefited from those predecessors, even carrying with them copies of their published accounts. James Cook, George Vancouver, and Alexander Mackenzie--and to a lesser extent fur traders John Meares and Robert Gray--directly and indirectly influenced the expedition. Based on new material as well as revised essays from popular history journals, "Lewis and Clark Reframed" examines several curious and seemingly inexplicable aspects of the journey after the Corps of Discovery crossed the Rocky Mountains. The captains' journals demonstrate that they relied on Mackenzie's 1801 "Voyages from Montreal" as a trail guide. They borrowed field techniques and favorite literary expressions--at times plagiarizing entire paragraphs. Cook's literature also informed the pair, and his naming conventions evoke fresh ideas about an enduring expedition mystery--the identity of the two or three journalists whose records are now missing. Additional journal text analysis dispels the notion that the captains were equals, despite expedition lore. Lewis claimed all the epochal discoveries for himself, and in one of his more memorable passages, drew on Mackenzie for inspiration. Parallels between Cook's and other exploratory accounts offer evidence that like many long-distance voyagers, Lewis grappled with homesickness. His friendship with Mahlon Dickerson lends insights into Lewis's shortcomings and eventual undoing. As secretary of the navy, Dickerson drew from Lewis's troubled past to impede the 1840s ocean expedition set to emulate Cook and solidify America's claim, through Lewis and Clark, to the region.

xxvii, 156 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 23 cm

Published by historian Richard R. Smith, Lewis & Clark in Lemhi County, Idaho: August 12-September 4, 1805 meticulously chronicles the Corps of Discovery's harrowing and pivotal traverse through the rugged continental divide. The book details the expedition's difficult encounters with the geography and the Agaidika (Salmon Eater) Shoshone people, highlighting the critical diplomatic negotiations and horse trades that ultimately enabled their passage over the Bitterroot Mountains. Drawing on journal entries, cartographic records, and local terrain analysis, the text traces the exact footpaths and campsites used during this grueling three-week window. A keen insight drawn from the work is how the expedition’s survival in the Salmon River country completely inverted the explorers' geographic expectations; instead of discovering an easy water route across the continent, Lewis and Clark were forced to humble themselves before indigenous mountain pathways, realizing that the West could only be crossed through collaborative reliance on native survival expertise.

v, 56, xi pages : color illustrations, maps ; 28 cm

In 1803, when the United States purchased Louisiana from France, the great expanse of this new American territory was a blank-not only on the map but in our knowledge. President Thomas Jefferson keenly understood that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward and that a national "Voyage of Discovery" must be mounted to determine the nature and accessibility of the frontier. He commissioned his young secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead an intelligence-gathering expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, Lewis, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide Sacajawea, and thirty-two men, made the first trek across the Louisiana Purchase, mapping the rivers as he went, tracing the principal waterways to the sea, and establishing the American claim to the territories of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Together the captains kept a journal, a richly detailed record of the flora and fauna they sighted, the Indian 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. In keeping this record they made an incomparable contribution to the literature of exploration and the writing of natural history. With 2003 marking the beginning of the Lewis and Clark expedition bicentennial celebration, this journal is now reissued in a beautiful new Penguin Classics package

xlvi, 505 pages : illustrations, maps ; 20 cm

The Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 across America from Pittsburg to the Pacific and back was the third recorded transcontinental journey. President Jefferson had negotiated the Louisiana Purchase of over two million square kilometres from the French in 1803, and the aim of the expedition was to investigate the territory involved. He commissioned a Corps of Discovery as a scientific and military expedition to survey the acquisition, appointing his aide Meriwether Lewis (1774?1809) to lead it. It was hoped to discover that the Missouri and other rivers could be used for transcontinental communication and transport, and to assess the natural resources of the area. Some of the party returned east with specimens, reports and a map, while the remainder reached the Pacific in December 1805. Volume 3 covers the return journey, during which Lewis and Clark separated to survey more of the tributaries of the Missouri

3 volumes 6 maps (including folded frontispiece) 22 cm