Customer Reviews

Saga of Lewis and Clark: Into the Unknown West

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This is a terrific art book which, when you think about it, is plenty to ask of a topnotch adventure tale.

There are plenty of key works of Western art in this book, gorgeously reproduced. Karl Bodmer, John Clymer, CM Russell, not to mention several very sharp repros from the original Lewis and Clark journals. Talk about grit and charm.

The book's copious maps will appeal to fans of the excellent Raven series. They look like sharp aerial photos. Doubletrucked across the top of an already wide book, you take in maybe 300 miles of virgin terrain in one eyeful.

The writers are the true tex-istensialists, wandering Lewis & Clark's West under dire skies as well as perfect ones with casual competency. They give us a fresh spin on that legendary trek of two centuries ago, knowing that we are interested in the subject and not the writers themselves. Now, that's refreshing storytelling.

"The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by it's course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce." -Thomas Jefferson, Instruction to Lewis, June 20, 1803

The Saga of Lewis & Clark is richly illustrated with lavish full-color photography, annotated topographical maps, pictorial timelines, sketches of the animal and plant species first recorded during the "voyage of discovery," archival images of native cultural arts and crafts, quotes and pictures of the land Lewis and Clark viewed on their journey to the Pacific.

There are pictures of Clark's field journal and a fold-out map of the journey to put it all in perspective.

The chapters include:

Members of the Expedition - pictures of the letter from Jefferson and gorgeous

pictures of the scenery.
Underway - Bound for the Pacific through the interior of the continent
Onto the Plains - Stories of the Tribes living on the plains.
Off the Map - Confrontations with grizzly bears
Over "Those Tremendous Mountains"
On to the Sea - Rapids and finally, some pictures I recognize as home! I can almost smell
the salty sea now as I look at the pictures. We visited Fort Clatsop once with my aunt.
Homeward Bound - Humorous story about fending off the herd of bison. Yikes!
Log - Expedition Roster, Index, Credits, Animal Listings, Plant Listings, Glossary

A retelling of the greatest wilderness trip ever recorded. Thomas Schmidt and Jeremy Schmidt truly have created a magnificent keepsake of this journey into the uncharted West.

An Epic Journey!

Beautiful, bright color photos pepper every page and often offer full-page spreads to accompany timelines, topographical maps, and rich accounts of the Lewis and Clark journey. Their words and experiences come to life in The Saga of Lewis & Clark, a survey which reveals different aspects of the travelers' discoveries and experiences, with Wayne Mumford providing the beautiful photography.

This book is so interesting. The photos in this book are awesome the excerpts from the journals and his commentary really stand out. This book is well worth it. It will supply you with many hours of enjoyment, I know,it did for me.

An exciting tale of the journey of these two adventurers and their crew is retold through sufficient text and plentiful images. The photos are striking and abundant and a great way to lure kids into reading the book. It's both educational and entertaining to learn of their trials. However, if you are looking for expansive, in-depth text of every moment, you should check out other books that are a reprinting of their diaries. While this book is thorough, it is really just an introduction to the whole adventure and easy enough that you'll probably finish it in just a few sittings.

In 1801, France acquired the vast Louisiana territory from Spain, and in 1803, France sold it to the United States. President Jefferson wanted to explore some of the new territory as well as to establish some claim on the Oregon territory to the West of it. The plan was to look for a route to the source of the Missouri river and from there to the source of the Columbia, and then to follow the Columbia to the Pacific. Captain Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and Second Lieutenant William Clark (1770-1838) were chosen to lead the expedition.

This book tells us a great deal about the expedition of Lewis and Clark, with some great photos of the terrain they encountered. We read about their encounters with grizzly bears, buffalo, fish, and mosquitoes. We find out how they coped with white water (in fact, they were even better than the Native Americans at handling it, although they were no match for the Chinook Indians when there were high waves near the coast). And we learn how they handled portages when they reached waterfalls or had to cross the Continental Divide (they abandoned their canoes and carved new ones at the top of the falls).

As the Schmidts explain, the expedition began to get organized in December of 1803, and it left Saint Louis on May 14, 1804. It went upriver on the Missouri to what is now North Dakota (the only death to an expedition member was on this portion of the trip), and the team wintered at Fort Mandan from November, 1804 to April, 1805.

The Indians local to Fort Mandan were the Hidatsa. But the ones who lived near the source of the Missouri were the Shoshone. The idea was to find some Shoshones, or even better, a Shoshone guide. The Shoshones could then explain how to get to the source of the Columbia, a region inhabited by the Nez Perce.

The official party of 25 left Fort Mandan on April 7, 1805 and headed immediately into uncharted territory. Along with them were Sacagawea (1788-1812), her husband Toussaint Charbonneau (1758-1840?) and their two month old son, Jean-Baptiste (1805-1866). Sacagawea was a Shoshone and spoke both Shoshone and Hidatsa, Toussaint spoke Hidatsa and French, and a member of the Lewis and Clark party spoke French and English. The presence of Sacagawea and her infant son helped assure various Indian tribes that the Lewis and Clark party had peaceful intentions.

They reached Great Falls (more than halfway across Montana) in June and Three Forks (the Missouri headquarters, which Sacagawea recognized) in late July. In August, they managed to reach the Lemhi valley (which Sacagawea also recognized) and looked around for some Shoshones. They did indeed find a Shoshone party. Truth being stranger than fiction, the Shoshone chief, Cameawait, turned out to be Sacagawea's brother.

The Shoshones did guide the party from the Continental Divide to a tributary of the Columbia. In September, they emerged from the Rocky Mountains, and they soon reached the Clearwater river. In October, they took the Snake river to the Columbia, reaching the Columbia estuary in November.

The party wintered at Fort Clatsop in Oregon, and even took Sacagawea to the Pacific to see a beached whale in January. They left Fort Clatsop on March 23, 1806, and were back in Saint Louis exactly six months later.

The first transcontinental railroad was completed in May of 1869 by crews which had headed West from Omaha, Nebraska and East from Sacramento, California. I wondered if any of the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition were still alive then. One was, namely Patrick Gass (1771-1870). It is sobering to realize how quickly this previously uncharted land became settled. When one compares the Montana of 1806 with that of 1906 and 2006, the differences are truly remarkable.

I highly recommend this book, which tells of a land which has changed greatly in a mere two centuries.

This is a wonderfully illustrated retelling of the incredible expedition to the West and the Pacific Ocean undertaken by the Corps of Discovery, that amazing group of men (and women) who trekked over four thousand miles from St. Louis to the west coast and back over the course of two years from 1804-1806. The story of Lewis and Clark's journey to the West has been told many times, but never in such an accessible and enjoyable format as this. It is pepppered with excerpts from the expedition's meticulously kept journals and vivid descriptions of the unknown land and the native tribes they encountered in their travels into the vast Louisiana Territory. This book is bursting with beautiful photos, paintings, and drawings that draw the reader into this truly amazing story of adventure and discovery that shaped a young new nation.