I also revisited the
Lewis and Clark National Historical Park and home of
Fort Clatsop. Fort Clatsop is the oldest American historic site west of the Rocky Mountains. What other site in America can claim to have been built, abandoned, then lost and forgotten only to be rediscovered and reconstructed, then tragically destroyed and constructed once again? The expedition was President Thomas Jefferson’s idea of sending 31 explorers to the vast unknown territory west of the Mississippi River.
Fort Clatsop’s story begins at the end of an extraordinary 4,000-mile journey in November of 1805 when Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific Ocean. During the winter of 1805-06, Captain’s Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery constructed an encampment on the banks of Netul River taking about 15 days to complete in the rain. Lewis and Clark constantly kept their party in the field hunting, gathering food, and making salt which was essential to the explorers to preserve meat for its return journey to be undertaken in the spring. The fort was named in honor of the land of the Clatsop Indians which helped the survival of the Corps for a total of 106 days (they counted 94 days of precipitation, including 17 days of snowfall, and only 6 days of sunshine).
You can visit a reconstructed replica of the Fort Clatsop and walk where first Chinook Indians and Clatsop Indians and then Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery walked. After two hundred years, what became of the little log fort immediately after Lewis and Clark’s departure is rather unclear, except for artifacts to identify the site. In less than six years, curious newcomers to the area were searching for this historic site. The John Astor Party arrived in 1811 and Gabriel Francher wrote in his journal,
“I saw the ruins of the quarters erected by Captains Lewis and Clark in 1805-06: they were but piles of rough, unhewn logs, overgrown with parasite creepers.” In May 1812, Ross Cox of the Astor Party also wrote,
“We also visited Fort Clatsop, the place where Captains Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-06; . . . The logs of the house were still standing and marked by the names of several of the party.” In 1813, the day official transfer of the Columbia Territory transferred into British hands, several British citizens searched for the campsite. Alexander Henry wrote in his journal,
“We walked up to see the old American winter quarters of Captains Lewis and Clark in 1805-06, which are in total ruins, the wood having been cut down and destroyed by the Indians; but the remains are still visible. In the fort are already grown up shoots of willows 25 feet high. The place is deeply shaded with spruce, pine, sapin, etc.; the woods seemed gloomy and dark, the beams of the sun being prevented from reaching the ground through so thick a foliage.”
Other nearby sites includes Cape Disappointment, Dismal Nitach (site where Captain Clark wrote,
“Ocean in view! O! the joy” on November 7, 1805), Station Camp, Netul Landing, Salt Works (located in the city of Seaside, Ore. in the midst of a residential section of town but is still administrated by the Park Service), Fort to Sea Trail, Fort Stevens, and Ecola State Park (where in 1806 Captain Clark, Sacagawea, and 12 men crossed Tillamook Head to see a beached whale determined to find it for a much needed source of oil). For more information visit,
link
The quarters of Capt. Lewis and Clark as well as a private room next door for Sacagawea, her child and husband.
Fort Clatsop
