TUESDAY,
AUGUST 26:
Pulled
out of the campground around 10 or 10:30.
Took the Washington side of the Columbia (Hwy 4) to Astoria, crossed
over the bridge (3rd time now – we’re getting to know that place!),
and headed west to Oregon’s north-westernmost tip. We thought that this would be a perfect place
to start our journey down the Oregon coast.
There’s another Lewis & Clark historical site we thought would be
nice to see, as well as a terrific State Park which had marvelous reviews.
So when
we arrived at the peninsula, we went first to Fort Clatsop, the L&C
historic site. Actually, it’s part of a
collection of about a dozen national and state sites which, collectively, make
up Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, our nation’s newest national
park. The site with the excellent
Visitors Center/museum which we saw up by Ilwaco on the Long Beach peninsula in
Washington is another of the sites.
The Fort Clatsop site is the place where Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery spent the winter of 1805-06. After their jubilant arrival at what they thought was the Pacific (“Ocian (sic) in view! O! the joy,” wrote Clark in his journal), but was actually the Columbia river estuary, the expedition spent 10 days at a campsite on the northern bank of the Columbia. From here, they explored the surrounding area on foot, including Cape Disappointment 12 miles west (that’s the area around Ilwaco), where they actually stood looking out on what they had “been so long anxious to see.” They also spent that time looking for a good site for a winter encampment. It was here that they took their famous “vote,” polling every member of the expedition, including Sacagewa and Clark’s black slave as to which of 3 areas each favored. What was chosen was this site on the southern bank of the river, probably because of reports they’d heard that there was plentiful game here.
They built a small and simple fort and named it after the local native tribe, the Clatsop. It would be their home for the next 3 months. During that time, local Clatsop and Chinook natives came almost daily to visit and to trade. Clark’s journals noted that they were very shrewd traders, having had a long history of trading with the “tall ships” which came in from the sea, and wealthy, that they were masterful canoe builders, had few enemies ,were talkative, inquisitive, and intelligent, and that they treated Lewis & Clark with “extrodeanary (sic) friendship.” When they departed, L&C left the fort and its furnishings to the Clatsop leader, Coboway.
Throughout that winter, Captains Lewis & Clark maintained a strict military routine: a sentinel was constantly posted, and at sundown each day the fort was cleared of visitors and the gates locked. Of the 106 days the explorers spent at the fort, it rained every day but 12. (Ask any Portlander – some things haven’t changed!) The men suffered colds, the flu, rheumatism, & other ailments that the Captains treated. Their clothing rotted. Not exactly the romantic notion some of us had about their cozy winter in log cabins!
Due to the rain, most of the men stayed inside for a good deal of the time, engaged in a variety of tasks – from servicing their weapons to preparing elk hide clothing for the trip home to making elk fat candles for light. Lewis & Clark caught up on their journal writing, and Clark, who had been trained as a cartographer, spent a lot of time refining and updating maps of the country through which they’d travelled for the past 18 months, territory previously a blank unknown to white men. Again, just an astonishing accomplishment – and the fact that only one person died (and he from what was most likely an appendicitis attack, which couldn’t have been helped even if he’d been in Philadelphia or Virginia) is utterly amazing.
Before they began their homeward journey in March 1806, Clark astutely drafted a letter documenting the corps’ arrival here and the accomplishment of their mission. He gave several copies to the natives, and I believe left some at the fort. Who can blame him?? If the men met a bad end on the 4,000 mile journey home, or if they survived but their journals were lost, what evidence would ever exist of the momentous challenge they’d undertaken and met?!
After our visit here, we drove to our campground. It’s within Fort Stevens State Park, the largest state park in Oregon. This state park is actually part of the Lewis & Clark National Historical Park I mentioned earlier. There’s a lot to do here – historical sites, biking and hiking trails, beaches. We could only get reservations for 1 night, but we’re hoping that something will open up for another night or two by tomorrow.
Another tight back-in. This is getting stressful! But once in, the stress was forgotten in this lovely setting. Big sites, nice big shade trees, laid out naturally. I can see why virtually all of the reviewers of this campground loved it!
Only negative (besides the challenging back-in site is no WiFi. We’re one of the very few big rigs we saw here as we drove around. Nearly all are small-to-medium size – lots of pop-up’s, etc. Thus, we’re deducing that most of the folks here are relatively local family-type campers, not long-distance travelers. Plus, a good many fishermen. Bill heard that the salmon are in the prime of their run around here right now, and that they’ve never been bigger.
After dinner (leftovers from Saturday’s pizza and yesterday’s clam chowder), we took a very short drive to a nearby beach where there are the remains of a shipwreck. It was an English sailing ship that ran aground during a storm in 1906.
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