When the party was ready to abandon the canoes, Lewis ordered one to be burned because he was determined that “not a particle should be left for the benefit of the indians” (Lewis, April 21, 1806). Lewis had one Indian beaten for stealing an iron socket, threatened to burn down a village in response to another theft, and told his men to kill three Chinooks who tried to steal his Newfoundland dog, Seaman (the Indians let the dog go before the order could be carried out). The Indians demanded what the captains considered unreasonably high prices for their horses, and they regularly helped themselves to hatchets, knives, and other small items left unattended in the expedition’s camps. Traveling east, Lewis and Clark became increasingly frustrated by their encounters with the people who lived along the lower Columbia. By late April, they had accumulated a herd of about 20. Captains Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838) decided to abandon the river if they could buy enough horses to carry the baggage, the ill, and the injured, expecting that most members of the expedition would walk. Progress was slow as the expedition made its way upstream, pushing against the current in a river swollen with spring runoff.

The party of 33 (including Sacagawea and her infant son) traveled in six boats: three heavy dugouts they had made the previous September, with help from Nez Perce Indians in Idaho two sleek canoes purchased from the Chinooks on the lower Columbia and one canoe stolen from the Clatsops. The homeward journey began on March 23, 1806, when the explorers left their soggy winter headquarters at what they called Fort Clatsop, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, and began paddling up the Columbia River.

From here, the explorers will continue east, ending their 8,000-mile 'voyage of discovery' in St. On May 5, 1806, after taking an overland shortcut from present-day Wallula to the vicinity of Clarkston, the Lewis and Clark Expedition leaves the confines of what is now the state of Washington.

Reunited colleen houck