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Chat Logs from the Dec. 10, 2002, event with John Krist
MODERATOR: Welcome to the Lewis & Clark chat with Ventura County Star senior reporter John Krist. The session will begin at 10 a.m.
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BRUMAC: John, how many miles did you travel while retracing Lewis and Clark's footsteps?
JKRIST: I drove about 15,000 miles, which is nearly twice as far as Lewis and Clark traveled on their trip from St. Louis to the Pacific and back. Of course, they didn't start in California. I drove from here to Tennessee, where I visited Lewis' grave on the Natchez Trace, and then backtracked to St. Louis. From there I headed up the Missouri River until I reached western Montana. That took about six weeks. Then I drove home to spend some time with my family. Later, I drove back to Montana and followed the rest of the trail to the Oregon coast, which took another five weeks or so. Then I had to drive home again.
JKRIST:In addition, I flew at separate times to North Dakota, so I could spend a few days at Fort Mandan in the middle of winter, and to the East Coast, so I could visit Philadelphia, Pa. -- that's where the original Lewis and Clark journals and plant specimens are kept -- and Charlottesville, Va., to visit Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello and learn about what's being done there to prepare for the bicentennial.
SDANA123:John, I read each of your installments in the newspaper and looked forward to them each month. Which one of the monthly installments was your favorite and why? Thanks.
JKRIST:Thanks. I think my favorite was the installment in which I described my canoe trip on the Upper Missouri. It was a great trip, with wonderful scenery, and an exciting storm that nearly blew us off the river. I felt closest to Lewis and Clark during that part of the trip, and I think it showed in the story.
MODERATOR:Do you have any plans to publish this series in book form?
JKRIST:We are discussing several options. We will certainly publish a newsprint reprint. We are also considering a CD-ROM version, and we have been discussing a book version but no final decision has been made yet.
ISPY:what was the most awe-inspiring sight on your journey?
JKRIST:There were many areas that I found quite remarkable, but I think my favorite was the landscape along the Upper Missouri River in Montana. It's one of the few places you can visit today and see a landscape that has not really changed in 200 years. It's very wild, very scenic, very remote.
JKRIST:It helped that I was traveling by canoe, which gives you plenty of time to enjoy the passing terrain.
AHOFFMAN: What kind of research did you do to prepare yourself for your trip along Lewis and Clark's route?
JKRIST:I spent a lot of time reading. I have a bookshelf full of books about various aspects of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and I familiarized myself with their journey in some detail. I also collected a stack of guide books and maps covering the 11 states along the trail. I spent about six months getting ready.
MODERATOR:What was the one thing you wish you would have prepared for and didn't?
JKRIST:I wish I had been able to better coordinate my trip with the many Lewis and Clark festivals and re-enactments that take place along the trail. It would have been fun to spend more time with some of the really devoted Lewis and Clark fans. But I couldn't really make that happen.
ISPY:Were you able to connect with the L&C historians along the trail and get their views on the voyage of discovery? And what was the most interesting area you visited, that you would return to?
JKRIST:I talked with a few, but I focused my interviews in the field on the contemporary issues that I also wrote about as part of each installment -- floodplain restoration, the effect of dams, fire policy, and so on. Most of the historians' perspectives I consulted came from the published sources.
JKRIST:Of all the places I visited, I would like to go back to the Dakotas and spend more time on the Great Plains. I would also return to the Upper Missouri River to repeat at least part of my canoe trip.
ISPY:What was the worst experience you had along the trail?
JKRIST:Without a doubt, the most miserable experience was the final two days of the Upper Missouri canoe trip. We were attacked by immense clouds of biting insects that just tormented us all day. It was hard to cook dinner. The only place we could get away from them was inside the tents, but it was really hot and that was like being in a nylon sauna.
JKRIST:A close second was the Fourth of July I spent in a campground next to Fort Peck Lake in Montana. It was blistering hot and windy, and the lake was covered by motorized boats of various sorts roaring around in circles. There was no shade and no water. The stove didn't work properly in the wind, and my son and I ended up eating lukewarm tuna on crackers for dinner.
DANALIBR: You mentioned that you returned to areas of the route to experience a different season. Was that to get a closer experience to what L&C had to travel through?
JKRIST:Yes. I really wanted to see what it was like to endure a winter on the northern Plains, so I flew to North Dakota in January and camped out overnight in the snow at Fort Mandan, where there's a replica of the fort the men of the expedition built for the winter of 1804-05. It didn't get as cold during my trip as it did during theirs -- the temperature fell to more than 40 below on a regular basis during their winter, and I only had to cope with lows around zero. But it was very instructive.
JKRIST:I also had a chance during that visit to spend an evening inside a Mandan earth lodge, which was quite warm and comfy despite the freezing cold outside. That was also instructive -- clearly the Native Americans on the northern Plains had developed a sophisticated means of coping with the harsh environment.
ISPY:Do you think the efforts to return the prairie lands to their original state have much of a chance at success?
JKRIST:There are large areas on tribal reservations and inside national parks and monuments where I see a great chance for success. Most of the prairie is farmed now, and it's almost impossible to do much with that land -- all the native plants and animals have been eliminated. Still, farming and ranching are marginal economic activities in many parts of the Plains, and there are opportunities to reclaim some of that land for ecological restoration if it can no longer be farmed profitably.
DANALIBR:PBS recently aired a program "Search for L&C." Archeologists were at Fort Mandan looking for evidence of L&C. Did you encounter any of their work in progress?
JKRIST:No. There have been archaeological investigations at several sites, many of them aimed at trying to pin down exact locations for expedition camp sites. Even the Fort Clatsop replica in Oregon is only approximately where the real thing was located. But I didn't run into any of those researchers during my trip.
DANALIBR:did you read any of the journals for your research?
JKRIST:I carried a copy of the one-volume version of the journals edited by Bernard DeVoto. I read it before I left, and then again as I was visiting the same sites they were describing. I wanted the new 13-volume edition recently published by Gary Moulton, but it runs about $1,000 in hardback. I'm hoping someone gives me the paperback version for Christmas. As an aside, I visited the American Philosophical Society library in Philadelphia and had a chance to examine the actual Lewis and Clark notebooks in person. It was quite a thrill to hold the same pages Lewis and Clark had written on with quill pens nearly 200 years ago.
DANALIBR:Yes I see they are coming gout in paperback, I have purchased most of the hardbacks, so I have quite a nice collection. They are amazing to read the actual words of the explorers
JKRIST:I agree. Reading their actual words helped me form a better mental picture of what kind of men they were. The journals are especially valuable because they really were the rather rough field notes, not polished and prettied up for publication. So they're more candid than they might otherwise have been. Plus, since they spelled phonetically, it's as if you can hear their voices, too, when you read.
DANALIBR:I compliment you on a great series and I am looking forward to the last installment for December. I would love to see this published in book form complete with the vivid color pictures and added info. Newspaper clippings don't save well.
JKRIST:I'm glad you enjoyed the series. I'm hoping to see a book version, too.
MODERATOR:Are there any more questions for the speaker?
DANALIBR:no, thanks for the opportunity to chat
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