Seeking western waters

by Emory M. Strong

From 1804-1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark conducted one of the best managed, most successful explorations in history. With President Thomas Jefferson's instructions to examine the recently bought Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery set out on a peaceful expedition that was unparalleled in the information it brought back to the rest of the United States. Emory Strong and Ruth Beacon Strong have used excerpts from the Reuben Thwaites edition of the Lewis and Clark journals that focus on the native population the Corps of Discovery came in contact with on their journey from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. Following their journey from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean, the Strongs supplied this book with over 200 photographs, many of them sites that have been since consumed by geological, riverine or human forces. Herbert K. Beals, a historian of maritime explorations of the Northwest Coast and a friend of the Strongs has augmented this pos