Thousands predicted at bicentennial events, sites

By John Krist
Senior reporter

Staff photo by John Krist A statue at Fort Benton, Mont., depicts Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Sacagewea, the Shoshone woman who aided them.

Two years ago, the University of Montana's Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research commissioned a nationwide survey of public interest in the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The survey results alarmed even the most boosterish community leaders.
Twenty-six percent of those surveyed said they were interested in visiting Montana in the next five years. About half of those potential visitors said they'd like to attend an event associated with the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, which formally will begin in Virginia at Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, on Jan. 18, 2003.

Extrapolating, the researchers said the survey results suggest that as many as 45 million Americans could be enticed to visit Montana to share in its celebration of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which traveled more miles in that state than in any of the 10 others along its route from St. Louis to the Pacific. If all those visitors showed up in the same year, it would boost the state's annual tourist count 500 percent.

At the very least, the report said, Montana should expect 8.9 million extra visitors from out of state during the bicentennial years of 2003-2006.

"If the figures are true," Travel Montana director Matthew Cohn told a local newspaper when the report was released, "it goes way beyond anything we could prepare for."

Along the trail, there's a lot of ambivalence -- even skepticism -- about those numbers. Yet throughout the West, bicentennial committee members and business owners cite the survey's tourism projections hopefully as they prepare for what could be the longest, most wide-ranging campaign of national celebration since the 1976 bicentennial of the American revolution.

This will be the second time the nation as a whole has looked back on the Lewis and Clark expedition, mining it for clues about the American character. There are distinct differences, however, between the centennial celebration, which ushered in the 20th century, and the bicentennial observance, which greets the 21st. The contrast suggests that the Corps of Discovery's journey is not just a chapter in American history but a sort of national Rorschach test -- an ink blot that each generation interprets according to its own preconceptions and preoccupations.

On the trail

One reason for ambivalence about the tourism survey's projections is that much of the Lewis and Clark trail passes through states that are sparsely populated and have limited means of accommodating a crush of visitors. This also poses a significant challenge to the formidable publicity machine that is gearing up to promote the bicentennial.

Montana, for example, although the fourth-largest U.S. state, has fewer than a million residents and a population density of only 6.2 people per square mile (the nationwide figure is 79.6 per square mile). Montana's largest city, Billings, has fewer than 90,000 residents. North Dakota has only 642,000 residents, 9.3 per square mile, and its biggest city -- Fargo -- counts only 91,000 residents.

Local land managers and business owners in these largely rural states often said they find it hard to believe that so many people from so far away will make the trek to historical sites that frequently are remote and in many cases cannot accommodate more than a handful of visitors at a time. At the same time, however, those responsible for administering and protecting those sites feel compelled to plan for a potential crush.

In Idaho's Clearwater National Forest, for example, where the primitive Lolo Motorway follows the Lewis and Clark expedition's tortuous route across the rugged Bitterroot Mountains, a permit system will be put in effect as soon as this summer and will stay in place until 2007, unless visitation drops significantly before then. The number of people and vehicles allowed to set out across the motorway each day will be strictly limited, with permits available through a lottery.

"We want the Lewis and Clark bicentennial visitors to have a memorable experience, but the Lolo Trail corridor is a primitive area, with minimal development," Forest Supervisor James Caswell wrote in a memo explaining his decision. "Capacity is limited due to primitive road conditions, few suitable camping areas, and many sensitive cultural and vegetative sites."

If the anticipated crush of visitors doesn't materialize, it won't be for lack of trying on the part of the travel industry and public agencies with an interest in recreation. The number of efforts to commemorate and capitalize on the expedition during the next four years is growing almost daily.

Besides the individual activities of countless entrepreneurs -- offering clients everything from Lewis and Clark canoe and horseback trips to luxurious riverboat cruises, bicycle adventures, recreational-vehicle caravans, summer camps and narrated bus tours -- there is a National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial to coordinate events nationwide. It has endorsed 10 "national signature events" along the trail, and its calendar already lists more than a score of other major events during the next three years.

In addition, there are dozens of state and regional bicentennial commissions (Montana alone has 15), and countless local historical societies and tribal organizations with committees devoted to the expedition. The Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation has 31 chapters. There is even a Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Congressional Caucus with 23 members in the Senate and 50 in the House of Representatives.

Although most of the bicentennial events -- ranging from historical re-enactments to festivals, seminars and conferences -- will be in the 11 states touched by the expedition's route, the National Park Service will try to ensure that no one is left out by launching the "Corps of Discovery II." The traveling exhibit, transported by three 18-wheelers, will visit metropolitan areas well away from the expedition's actual route -- Atlanta, Memphis, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis, Detroit.

Staff photo by John Krist A new visitor center just north of St. Louis will commemorate Camp Wood, where the Corps of discovery spent the winter before beginning its journey. It is one of several projects being built in conjunction with the bicentennial.

Millions of taxpayers' dollars have already been spent on projects related to the bicentennial; more will be allocated in coming years. New visitor centers are under construction or planned at several sites along the trail -- at Camp Wood River in Illinois, on Lost Trail Pass in Idaho, in Sioux City, Iowa -- as are parking lots and interpretive signs.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told Columbia River Basin Indian tribes that it had $200 million to help Native Americans tell their side of the Lewis and Clark story, mostly by installing signs, restrooms and parking lots at interpretive sites along the trail. Congress has approved $1 million to build the Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural, and Education Center in Salmon, Idaho. In Montana, the state's Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission has approved $400,000 in grants in the past two years to support projects sponsored by local communities and nonprofit groups, including books, signs, exhibits and visitor facilities. The National Park Service issued $1.27 million in grants last year for 99 bicentennial projects in at least a dozen states.

Capitalizing on history

The impulse to commemorate the bicentennial and the Corps of Discovery -- or exploit them, cynics might say -- extends into other arenas as well.

A dollar coin honoring Sacagawea, the teen-age Shoshone mother who accompanied the explorers and played an important role in the success of their journey, was issued in February 2000. North Dakota and Idaho have new Lewis and Clark license plates. The U.S. Navy has announced it will name a new class of vessel after the explorers, with individual ships bearing the names of Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea.

In January 2001, President Clinton designated some of the wild countryside around the expedition's route in central Montana as Missouri Breaks National Monument. At the same time, he established Pompeys Tower National Monument along the Yellowstone River in southern Montana, preserving a landmark upon which Clark carved his name -- still the only physical evidence of the expedition along the trail.

Clinton also retroactively promoted Lt. William Clark to captain (giving him equal rank to Lewis and finally making good on a promise Lewis and Thomas Jefferson had made to Clark when they offered him the job). Along with this bit of historical revisionism, Clinton conferred the title of "honorary sergeant, regular Army" on Sacagawea and on York, Clark's black slave, both of whom played important roles in the expedition but neither of whom would have been eligible for such recognition in the early 19th century.

And no major anniversary would be complete without product tie-ins. It's already possible to buy a wide variety of Lewis and Clark merchandise at gift shops along the trail: books and videos about the explorers and the places they visited, CDs and cassettes of period music, replicas of expedition hardware such as tin lanterns, fire-making kits, compasses, telescopes and a portable writing desk (advertised as "America's first laptop"), "fine-art" prints, note cards and paintings, commemorative coins and medals, even blankets, decanters, mugs, keychains and other trinkets bearing images of expedition members.

There's a plush toy dog modeled after Lewis' Newfoundland, Seaman, which accompanied the explorers (the toy is a perfect companion to Seaman's "autobiography," recently published as a children's book). Land Rover exhorts potential buyers to "find your inner Lewis & Clark" in an ad campaign for a sport utility vehicle.

If that weren't enough, the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial reported in a memo last summer to its Circle of State Advisers that it "has been in communication with a wholesaler of products (T-shirts, backpacks, journals, key chains, etc) that is willing to conduct marketing research on the council's behalf in an attempt to determine what products stores would be willing to have on their shelves. The National Council is also looking at what products would allow for individual state marks that would generate monies back to the states."

Planning for the bicentennial involves more, however, than product endorsements, tourism marketing campaigns and political use of the explorers' heroic image. The very meaning of the Lewis and Clark expedition itself is up for grabs, the subject of intensifying debate among scholars, environmental activists, Native American tribal leaders and social critics.

The boosters

When the nation observed the centennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, there was little disagreement over what it had meant, or how the anniversary ought to be commemorated. There were two primary events: the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1903-04, and Portland's Lewis and Clark Exposition, which opened in 1905. Both were unabashed in their celebration of the purchase and the first exploration of the West as advancing America's manifest destiny to conquer the continent.

In his address on April 30, 1903, at the dedication ceremonies of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, President Theodore Roosevelt summed up the tenor of the time and the uncomplicated way in which the events of the preceding century were viewed.

"When we acquired it," Roosevelt declared of the Louisiana Territory, "we made evident once (and) for all that consciously and of set purpose we had embarked on a career of expansion, that we had taken our place among those daring and hardy nations who risk much with the hope and desire of winning high position among the great powers of the earth."

"This work of expansion was by far the greatest work of our people during the years that intervened between the adoption of the Constitution and the outbreak of the Civil War."
There were other questions of real moment and importance, and there were many which at the time seemed such to those engaged in answering them; but the greatest feat of our forefathers of those generations was the deed of the men who, with pack-train or wagon-train, on horseback, on foot, or by boat upon the waters, pushed the frontier ever westward across the continent.

Continuing this theme, the Portland exposition's motto was "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way." The official seal depicts Lewis and Clark standing on the shore of the western sea, a setting sun blazing forth in all its glory. They gaze off into the distance, hands raised as if in greeting, while between them a fair-haired Lady Liberty -- dressed in a diaphanous white gown and wrapped in an American flag -- stands with one arm around each explorer's shoulder.

Besides lavishing praise on the nation's inexorable push westward, the expositions also were excuses to promote local and regional economic opportunities. Sponsored by businesses as well as by local government officials, they were intended to highlight the host cities' advantages as places to invest, to live, to work. Portland's Lewis and Clark Exposition featured acres of gleaming white buildings stuffed to overflowing with exhibits about the natural resources of the Pacific Northwest as well as examples of the region's agricultural and industrial products.

"The extravaganza of a world's fair gave Portland a chance to show itself off and opened new opportunities for growth," Carl Abbott, a professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University, wrote in "The Great Extravaganza," his book about the Lewis and Clark Exposition. "It offered an older generation an occasion to work the strings of power one more time, and it gave a new generation a chance to shape the city in which it wanted to live."

Somewhere on the way to the 21st century, however, doubt began to erode the ideas celebrated by the centennial expositions --assumptions that growth is always good, that natural resources exist to be exploited, that westward expansion should be regarded as America's sacred destiny rather than the violent conquest of an already inhabited land. Accordingly, the bicentennial has drawn a chorus of dissenting voices unlike anything heard 100 years ago. The loudest concern the fate of Native Americans, plants and wildlife, and even the western landscape itself, in the years after the Corps of Discovery's journey helped turn the nation's attention toward the Pacific.

Telling the stories

The Sierra Club, for example, has launched a five-year campaign called "Wild America" to protect wilderness areas along the expedition's route (as well as some Lewis and Clark never saw). Citing the damaging effects of clear-cutting, dams, road construction, oil and natural gas drilling, pollution and habitat destruction on the wild country described in the explorers' journals, it calls for a variety of conservation measures.

"Our hope is to use the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark to help America rediscover these incredible lands and urge Americans to advocate the protection and restoration of our remaining wild places," the club says in its profile of the campaign. "Our goal is to permanently protect the 56 million acres of remaining wildlands in Lewis and Clark country, preserve and protect key wildlife habitat, and protect threatened and endangered species like bison, wolves, grizzly bears and salmon."

American Rivers, another environmental advocacy organization, has launched what it calls "Voyage of Recovery: Restoring the Rivers of Lewis and Clark." Its goal is to use the bicentennial to attract attention to the environmental damage wrought by years of efforts to "tame" the Missouri River with dams and levees, and to reverse that damage through changes in dam operation and ecological restoration projects.

"Today, we can only imagine what Lewis and Clark experienced on the Missouri River almost 200 years ago," the organization says in its brochure describing the campaign. "But if we begin a Voyage of Recovery today, we can re-create a river that supports wildlife, recreation and tourism and is an invaluable asset to the communities along its banks -- a conservation legacy to commemorate the bicentennial of their epic journey."

Native tribes have also been reluctant to participate in the celebration of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. There are a number of reasons for this, but perhaps the most significant is that the expedition marked the beginning of the end of their way of life. Rather than a glorious era of national expansion, the opening of the West meant for them dispossession and cultural disintegration.

"Although some people celebrate the scientific purposes of the expedition, Lewis and Clark symbolize other aspects of the journey to Indian people," Julie Cajune, a member of the Salish and Kootenai tribes in western Montana, wrote in a Forest Service newsletter about the bicentennial. "The expedition was also a business trip, to reconnoiter natural resources that could be exploited. To many Indian people, the story of Lewis and Clark is not separate from the story that followed, which includes decimation of whole animal populations, taking of Indian lands and suppression of tribal cultures."

To many Native Americans, the bicentennial offers a chance to ensure that their history is at last woven into the texture of American history.

"We have our own stories about Sakakawea, Lewis and Clark," said Calvin Grinnell, a cultural preservation development specialist for the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. "Tribes come and go, people come and go. These are sad facts. We have a lot of suffering we have endured over the years. Now, we have to tell that story, a story to lay alongside the others."