Vancouver, Whistler & Vancouver Island - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 846

or to the area's Native Americans. York, Clark's African American servant, also softened
tensions between the group and the Native Americans.
The party traveled some 8000 miles in about two years, documenting everything they
came across in their journals with such bad spelling that it must have taken historians a
few extra years just to sort out what they wrote. Meticulous notes were made on 122 an-
imals and 178 plants, with some new discoveries along the way. On November 15, 1805,
the party finally reached the mouth of the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean at Cape
Disappointment (now a state park in Washington). Needing to bed down for the winter,
they established Fort Clatsop just south of Astoria, which today has been reconstructed in
the Lewis & Clark National Historical Park.
Lewis and Clark returned to a heroes' welcome in St Louis in 1806. Lewis was later
appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory, but he died a year later, possibly
murdered, but more likely by suicide. Clark became governor of the Missouri Territory,
living to be 68.
Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose, is a compelling account of the Lewis and
Clark expedition, following the footsteps of their extraordinary journey to the Pacific and
back again.