Article I wrote for the Tri-City Herald newspaper.

1. Tri-City Herald: Local http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/v-printer/story/7560699p-74...
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'Our homeward bound journey'
This story was published Friday, March 24th, 2006
By Nathan Isaacs, Herald staff writer
ASTORIA -- Jeff Sindelar sat by a smoldering campfire, stitching himself a new possibles bag from which he'll hope to
remedy any desire over the course of the next few thousand miles.
Across the fire, David Cain and Mike Bowman pulled their draw knives across cedar planks that each was carving into
a paddle. Alec Weltsien sat nearby, stitching together buckskin moccasins.
At Camp Lewis and Clark, near the northwest tip of Oregon, everyone had a job preparing for a journey that will take
the group re-enacting the expedition of 200 years ago home. They will travel from the camp on the Pacific Ocean, up
the Columbia River, past the Tri-Cities and eventually to St. Louis in late September.
On Thursday, the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, Mo., the official re-enactors for the Lewis and Clark
Bicentennial, set off on their trip on the anniversary of what Capt. William Clark called in his March 23 journal entry,
"our homeward bound journey." Clark added:
"At this place we had wintered and remained from the 7th of Decr. 1805 to this day and have lived as well as we had
any right to expect, and we can Say that we were never one day without 3 meals of Some kind a day either pore Elk
meat or roots, not withstanding the repeeted fall of rain which had fallen almost constantly."
The Corps of Volunteers for Northwest Discovery set off in 1804 from St. Louis to chart the West, meet its people and
to find a navigable water route from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, if such a fabled waterway existed. The
expedition, which was led by Clark and Capt. Meriwether Lewis, trekked by boat, horseback and on foot some 7,000
miles round-trip.
Along the way, the group met and traded with dozens of native tribes, documented hundreds of previously
undocumented animals and plants, straddled the headwaters of the Missouri River, crossed the Continental Divide, got
lost in the Bitterroot Mountains and briefly explored the Mid-Columbia before reaching the Pacific in early November.
The St. Charles re-enactors have followed the trail as best they can, camping at the same locations at the same time
as the earlier expedition. Along the way, they've shared the expedition's story and their own with thousands of people.
"The first expedition was for exploration, the second was for education," Cain said.
The group returned to Astoria earlier this week after spending the winter at home with families, jobs and other
modern-day responsibilities.
The group has about 188 members from 38 states. Sindelar is from Wildwood and Weltsien is from Dillon, both in
Montana. Bowman is from Plattsmouth, Neb., and Cain is from Raytown, Mo.
About 32 re-enactors were expected to leave Thursday from Astoria and the newly rebuilt Fort Clatsop, but their
numbers will fluctuate as they move along the trail and take time off from work or school.
They had set up camp along the Lewis and Clark River, a mile or so south of Fort Clatsop at the Lewis and Clark
National and State Historical Park
Camp was set up along the forested slopes of the Clatsop Ridge dominated by Sitka spruce as large as 6 feet in
diameter and Western hemlock trees. Bald eagles nest in the area and can often be seen perched along the river or in
flight. A resident herd of Roosevelt elk is said to reside in the park.
Before the departure, the group spent the week practicing paddling skills and testing a new canoe with a design based
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on the canoes used by the Chinook tribe at the time of the expedition.
Peyton "Bud" Clark -- who portrays his great-great-great-grandfather in the re-enactment -- said a black mark for the
original expedition was when it stole a Chinook canoe for the return trip home, justifying the act by saying the tribe had
earlier taken some elk from them.
This time, however, Clark said they had received the tribe's permission to build the boat and even had it blessed and
named by the tribe during an oceanfront ceremony Tuesday. The boat's name is ITs WOOT, which in Chinook means
Black Bear.
The re-enactors expect to carve about 40 Chinook-designed paddles, which they'll use as they paddle up the Columbia
River. They are expected to arrive in the Tri-Cities on April 27 and to camp a couple of nights at Pasco's Sacajawea
State Park.
From there, Clark said the group will walk the Lewis and Clark trail between Wallula and Clarkston, passing Prescott,
Waitsburg and Dayton. One of 15 national events commemorating the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial is planned in early
June in Lewiston, Idaho.
Clark said one of the highlights for the re-enactors has been meeting different people along the trail, including the
tribes, and he expects the group to renew friendships made during the first half of the trip.
He said the commemorative events, shared stories, potluck dinners and so forth will be the legacy of the bicentennial
and a "coming together as an American family."
Cain, who has been with the re-enactor group since 1996, said "It's an experience that you can't get by reading a
book."
He gets goose bumps when he realizes he's in the same spot, on the same day and often doing the same thing or
seeing the same thing as expedition members did 200 years earlier. As for September's homecoming in St. Louis, he
said, this expedition "will stop there, but it won't end."
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