2019
September 2019
Official Newsletter of the Oregon Chapter of the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation
President's Corner
As the Corps of Discovery ascended the Missouri River on June 2, 1805, the river split into two branches. The left branch [Missouri] came from the NW, was 372 yards wide, clear, shallow, and swift, and had a rocky bottom. The right branch [Marias] came from the N, was 200 yards wide, muddy, deeper, and slower-moving, and had a muddy bottom. Correctly identifying the right branch as the true Missouri would be critical to the Expedition’s success—choosing the wrong branch would cost it valuable time needed to get over the Rocky Mountains before winter set in.
The expedition camped there for 11 nights while the captains deliberated carefully. After evaluating all the available information, Lewis told the men the decision: to ascend the left branch of the river.
Lewis wrote: The entire party [including their best waterman, Cruzatte] thought the right branch was the true Missouri. They said very cheerfully that they were ready to follow us any wher we thought proper to direct but that they still thought the other river was the [Missouri] river and that they were afraid that the South fork would soon termineate in the mountains and leave us at a great distance from the Columbia.
So why did the Captains go against the opinion of the entire party?
I believe it was principally due to very keen geological observations of the stream bed that, with secondary supportive information, convinced the captains that the left fork was the true Missouri.
The rest of the party’s opinion was largely based on the nature of the right fork. It was muddy and turbulent like the river downstream that they had been ascending since they left St. Louis. However, the Captains considered the evidence differently. Clark observed that left branch is perfectly transparent runds very rapid but with a smoth unriffled surface it’s bottom composed of round and flat smooth stones like most rivers issuing from mountainous country.
Evaluating the rocks in the rivers carried downstream on each branch is a simple geologic concept, but it was actually a quite brilliant observation.
This is a lesson for all of us. When making important decisions we need be of independent mind, observe carefully, listen to others, evaluate all the information, and then proceed on with confidence.
Glen Kirkpatrick
glen9774@mail.com
Touring the Oregon Vault — May 2019
collections of the Oregon Historical Society, hosted the Oregon
Chapter in May. The fascinating tour, led by OHS executive director
Kerry Tymchuk, began with an examination of Sanborn Maps of
Portland (above). Chapter president Glen Kirkpatrick failed to find
his “white whale”—the very large whalebone inscribed by Meriwether
Lewis—but vowed to continue his search (see below).
Housed in a nondescript warehouse at an unpublicized location in Gresham, the 100,000-square-foot storage facility holds the bulk of the OHS collections.
The tour included explanations of the Society’s accession and deaccessioning processes as well as tips-of-the-iceberg views of manuscript, vehicle, costume, native artifact, and film collections.
Larry McClure Receives Top Foundation Award
The national Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation owes Larry McClure a huge debt of gratitude. In recognition, it will present Larry with its Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor that it bestows, at its annual meeting this month in St. Louis. Larry has organized two national meetings (2005 & 2018); helped reconstitute the foundation board as secretary in 2011 after all the other officers and the executive director resigned; and served in many other capacities, including 20 years on our board (and President 2007–2010).Chapter Activities
Explore More!
whale bones hoping to find the lost artifact associated with the
Lewis & Clark Expedition which he’d seen on display in 1976.
Watch your mail and e-mail, and especially the chapter website for more information and details.
Send $10 and your name (as you want it to appear), to Ellie McClure, 17760 S.W. Cheyenne Way, Tualatin, OR 97062 (Ellie.McClure@or-lcthf.org). Make checks payable to OR-LCTHF. (click the picture above to see a larger image.)
2019 Chapter Events
See the Events page for more details if available!
- Oct. 12, 1:00 PM Melissa Darby speaks on Sir Francis Drake’s 1579 landing on the Oregon Coast: West Linn Public Library. Her new book is Thunder Go North: The Hunt for Sir Francis Drake’s Fair and Good Bay
- Dec. 7, 4:00 PM Holiday dinner at Fort Clatsop. Bill Gavin & Rachel Stokeld speak on “The Archaeology of Middle Village”.
Prospective 2020 Events:
- Charbonneau interpreter
- Old John & the Spider
- Portland L&C campsites and commemorations
- Confluence sites
- Let us know if you want to help.
Officers:
President | Glen Kirkpatrick '19 |
| Vice President | Lyn Trainer ’20 |
| Secretary | Mark Johnson '19 |
| Treasurer | Ellie McClure ’20 |
| Directors | Alec Burpee ‘21 David Ellingson ‘20 Thelma Haggenmiller ‘19 Mary Johnson ‘21 Ted Kaye ‘19 Zachariah Selley ’20 Roger Wendlick ‘21 |
| Ex Officio | Jon Burpee Hannah Crummé Larry McClure |
Please contact Glen Kirkpatrick with interest in Chapter service.
L&C in OHS’s Experience Oregon
The Oregon Historical Society’s new permanent Experience Oregon exhibit prominently features the Lewis & Clark story. A significant display interprets the Expedition’s importance to Oregon history through three Expedition artifacts and extensive images and other items. |  |
 | Top Right: Interpretive wall. Bottom Left: Whalebone Fragment. |
L&C Sites near Prescott Beach, Oregon — August 2019
Roger Wendlick describes the Expedition’s local experience.
presents a tribal-made miniature
basket as a thank-you to the
speaker, Roger Wendlick
In August, 15 chapter members gathered at Prescott Beach Park, along the Columbia River in Columbia County, near two Lewis & Clark Expedition campsites.
After a board meeting and a potluck picnic, they heard Roger Wendlick describe the Corps’ local history using William Clark’s map. Afterwards they trooped downstream to the November 5, 1805 campsite, across the railroad tracks in Laurel Beach Park (closed), then journeyed upstream to the vicinity of the March 27, 1806 campsite. Both have been altered by dredge spoils and the railroad, but the Columbia River itself looks much as the Expedition saw it.
Chapter president Glen Kirkpatrick points out the Corps’ campsite
of November 5, 1805, downstream from Prescott Beach Park.
May 2019
Official Newsletter of the Oregon Chapter of the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation
President's Corner
The volunteer efforts of our dedicated and talented board members make our chapter’s success possible. They provide leadership which makes our chapter a model for other chapters.
We started the year with a truly outstanding presentation on Oregon’s Spanish Galleon Shipwreck, complete with a beeswax artifact. Our next event was a great evening touring the Oregon Historical Society’s the Oregon Experience and hearing a lecture Native Homelands and Lewis & Clark. After that we had a great day on the Explore More Sternwheeler ride. This is just the beginning of an exciting year with several great upcoming events. I hope you can all make the pizza feed and tour of the Oregon Vault by OHS Director Kerry Tymchuk on May 31. These events don’t just happen—they are a product of selfless volunteers. I appreciate the board members who make all this possible.
Reading the Journals, I often marvel at the daily accomplishments and wonder how the Corps got it all done. Consider Sergeant Patrick Gass’s day on July 31, 1806. He and his party of 12 had just completed the down-river portage of the Great Falls and picked up Lewis, the Field brothers, & Drouillard after their Blackfeet encounter. On that wet and disagreeable morning they loaded their canoes, headed down river, and at 9:00 AM stopped to shoot 15 elk. After taking the skins and the best meat, they proceed on and conducted a “leisurely” hunt killing, skinning, and dressing another 14 deer, two bighorn sheep, and a beaver. They found shelter from the persistent rain by covering the Indian winter lodge frameworks they found with the skins they had just procured. When I canoed that stretch of the Missouri, the farthest I travelled in one day was 25 miles. They did all this and still traveled 70 miles that day!
So when my wife broke her ankle last winter I had to pick up all the duties of running the house, farm, and car. There was just not enough time to get everything done—at times I felt overwhelmed. Then I remembered Patrick Gass and the day he had. This is nothing compared to that day. So if you ever feel too busy and overwhelmed, just remember Patrick Gass on July 31, 1806.
Glen Kirkpatrick
glen9774@mail.com
Natives + Lewis & Clark at OHS — April 2019
on Native Homelands: Lewis & Clark and the Pioneers. The
new Oregon Experience exhibit features substantial interpretation
of Lewis & Clark, along with Expedition-related several artifacts.
Historian and professor Bill Lang and Tamástslikt Cultural Institute director Bobbie Connor shared their perspectives on Oregon history seen from the native point of view.
Chapter members enjoyed a pre-event dinner at the nearby Raven & Rose restaurant (the former Ladd Carriage House) and toured the exhibit.
NASA and LCTHF Team Up — GLOBE Observer
Our national foundation urges us to participate in NASA’s GLOBE Observer program as citizen-scientists like the Corps.As we get outside more frequently this summer and travel the L&C Trail, we can use the downloadable GLOBE Observer phone app to take scientific measurements and provide observations to help better understand our global environment.
The app includes tools to count mosquito larvae, measure the height of trees, and more.
GLOBE observations can help scientists track changes in clouds, water, plants, and other life in support of Earth system science research. Scientists can also use our data to help interpret NASA and other satellite data.
Chapter Activities
Explore More!
& Clark Expedition aboard the Columbia Gorge sternwheeler on
its April 18 repositioning cruise between Cascade Locks and The
Dalles. (L. to R: John Orthmann, Glen Kirkpatrick, Capt. Tom
Cramblett, Thelma Haggenmiller, and Roger Wendlick)
Watch your mail and e-mail, and especially the chapter website for more information and details.
McMenamin’s St. John’s Pub
A movie theatre then and now, it provided many excited fair-goers their first glimpse of a motion picture.
It is now McMenamin’s St. John’s Pub.
Send $10 and your name (as you want it to appear), to Ellie McClure, 17760 S.W. Cheyenne Way, Tualatin, OR 97062 (Ellie.McClure@or-lcthf.org). Make checks payable to OR-LCTHF. (click the picture above to see a larger image.)
2019 Chapter Events
See the Events page for more details if available!
- May 31, 12 / 2 PM: Lunch/ Tour the Oregon Vault in Gresham, the Oregon Historical Society’s state-of-the-art storage facility for Oregon’s artifacts.
Prospects:
- L&C military history in Oregon
- Spirit Mountain Casino and Museum
- Portland L&C campsites and commemorations
- Camp Rilea archaeology
- Ice Age Floods
- Confluence sites
Officers:
President | Glen Kirkpatrick '19 |
| Vice President | Lyn Trainer ’20 |
| Secretary | Mark Johnson '19 |
| Treasurer | Ellie McClure ’20 |
| Directors | Alec Burpee ‘21 David Ellingson ‘20 Thelma Haggenmiller ‘19 Mary Johnson ‘21 Ted Kaye ‘19 Roger Wendlick ‘21 |
| Ex Officio | Jon Burpee Hannah Crummé Larry McClure |
Please contact Glen Kirkpatrick with interest in Chapter service.
New Chapter Board Member
He contributes to the Orbis Cascade Alliance as a member of the Unique and Local Content Team, and Chair of the Archival Collection Management Standing Group.
His work on the history and literature of the Lewis & Clark Expedition center around his position at Lewis & Clark College, where he uses the resources of the Expedition collections to teach and advance research on the legacy of Lewis & Clark.
Sacagawea Featured in Play
“Protect the Water—Remember the Sacrifice.” Written by Mary Kathryn Nagle and directed by Molly Smith, Crossing Mnisose (minne-show-she) “tells the story of one of America's first feminists, Sacajawea, and draws a line from a completely original view of Lewis & Clark to the present day, as descendants of the Dakota and Lakota Nations continue their fight for the Mnisose (what Europeans named the Missouri River) and the lands that contain the burials of their ancestors.”
Beeswax Shipwreck — February 2019
shedding new light on the “Beeswax Shipwreck”
and the cargo that natives traded to Lewis & Clark
“We now know with near certainty that the Santo Cristo de Burgos wrecked on Nehalem Spit in 1693. Cameron La Follette, the Executive Director of the Oregon Coast Alliance and co-author of a special issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly devoted to the shipwreck, gave a special presentation to 25 chapter members and friends at the West Linn Public Library in February. She described the wreck and recent research illuminating it.
The Spanish “Manila galleon” strayed off course en route to Acapulco. Among its many cargo items were tons of beeswax destined for churches in the New World (which had no honeybees). The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition were the first to mention the beeswax on the Oregon Coast. The Oregon Historical Society loaned a chunk for viewing.
January 2019
Official Newsletter of the Oregon Chapter of the Lewis & Clark Trail Heritage Foundation
President's Corner
I am truly honored to be chosen as the new president of the Oregon Chapter of the LCTHF. I hope to do as well as our past president Mark Johnson. We all owe him a big thank-you for his steadfast leadership over the last eight years. He has kept our chapter strong and made it a bright star in the Foundation and an example for other chapters to emulate”.
As your president, I want to keep us focused on our mission of keepers of the story. In each of the successive President’s Message in this newsletter I hope to share a quote or passage from the journals that has special significance.
I want to start with the very last sentence of John Ordway’s journal, dated September 23, 1806:
We often elevate members of the expedition to super-hero status. But this passage puts a humble human face to the members of the party as Sgt. Ordway turns his thoughts to home and family. In many respects they were just ordinary people like us who accomplished the extraordinary. So, too, our chapter has just completed an extraordinary effort hosting the Foundation’s annual meeting.drew out the canoes then the party all considerable much rejoiced that we have the Expedition Completed and now we look for boarding in Town and wait for our settlement and then we entend to return to our native homes to see our parents once more as we have been So long from them.
This is just one aspect of the expedition that makes it such a great story and relevant to today.
Glen Kirkpatrick
glen9774@mail.com
Farewell from Mark Johnson
Dear Chapter Members,
honors outgoing president Mark
Johnson at the holiday dinner.
We had a great year in 2018, capped by the Annual Meeting in Astoria and our holiday celebration in Cascade Locks. As we enter 2019, I take on a new role as our chapter’s secretary.
I am truly proud of what we have accomplished together during my time as president, and I owe a big thanks to all of you who volunteered your time and talents to bring us to this point.
I am especially grateful to our board members who have helped guide us to become one of the largest, most stable and active chapters in the nation.
I encourage you all to continue the good work of trail stewardship and keeping the story alive, as I will do, in support of our new president, Glen Kirkpatrick.
Mark Johnson
Photo Gallery Bookended by Annual Meetings
Visit or-lcthf.org/gallery to see over 2,000 images compiled into 84 individual event-based albums. Thank you, chapter photographers!
The Oregon Chapter’s website hosts an extensive photo gallery with 2,000+ images, from nearly every event held since 2005. It begins with the national foundation’s annual meeting that year, which we hosted in Portland, and runs through the annual meeting in 2018, which we hosted in Astoria. Chapter photographers— including John Montague, Mark Johnson,
Wisdom of the Elders Celebrates 25 Years The board of directors and staff at Wisdom of the Elders, Inc., celebrated preserving the history, traditions, and culture of America’s Native American and Alaskan Native community
Chapter Activities
Explore More!
assemble after the thank-you dinner in December 2018. Oregon
thanks all the Washington colleagues for their great help
Watch your mail and e-mail, and especially the chapter website for more information and details.
2018 National Meeting of the Foundation Excels
81% of attendees rated the meeting “one of the best” or “the best ever”!
Ellie and Larry McClure, the leadership team, welcome folks.
Tribal participation creates a meaningful experience for all.
Prof. Gary Moulton addresses the audience of over 200.
Send $10 and your name (as you want it to appear), to Ellie McClure, 17760 S.W. Cheyenne Way, Tualatin, OR 97062 (Ellie.McClure@or-lcthf.org). Make checks payable to OR-LCTHF. (click the picture above to see a larger image.)
2019 Chapter Events
See the Events page for more details if available!
- February 23, 1:00 PM: Beeswax Shipwreck talk at West Linn Public Library by Cameron La Follette, director of the Oregon Coast Alliance.
Prospects:
- L&C military history in Oregon
- Spirit Mountain Casino and Museum
- Portland L&C campsites and commemorations
- Camp Rilea archaeology
- Ice Age Floods
- Confluence sites
Officers:
President | Glen Kirkpatrick '19 |
| Vice President | Lyn Trainer ’20 |
| Secretary | Mark Johnson '19 |
| Treasurer | Ellie McClure ’20 |
| Directors | Alec Burpee ‘21 David Ellingson ‘20 Thelma Haggenmiller ‘19 Mary Johnson ‘21 Ted Kaye ‘19 Roger Wendlick ‘21 |
| Ex Officio | Jon Burpee Hannah Crummé Larry McClure |
Please contact Glen Kirkpatrick with interest in Chapter service.
About Our New President
New chapter president Glen Kirkpatrick’s interest in Lewis & Clark began in 1994 as he researched Clark’s Point of View on Tillamook Head. He has served on the chapter board since 2001, as a director, secretary, and VP. Trained as a geologist, he holds an MBA from the University of Portland and is retired from the Rail Division of the Oregon Department of Transportation. Glen is an avid outdoor enthusiast, enjoying wilderness travel by foot, kayak, and on horseback. He has kayaked the trail from Bonneville Dam to Fort Clatsop.
He lives with his wife, Paula Beck, in Molalla on a 10 acre farm with four horses, one dog & cat, and too many chickens to count.
Holiday Dinner and Volunteer Appreciation — December 2018
Columbia River Sternwheeler
(and mayor of Cascade Locks)
illuminates the local history of
L&C and the Columbia..
In the business meeting, members voted by acclamation for a rearrangement of officers and directors. Most importantly, Mark Johnson stepped down after 8 years as president (assuming the role of secretary) and longtime vice-president Glen Kirkpatrick was elected in his place.
During the evening, the core members of The Meriwethers band performed L&C-themed songs, representatives of the Saltmakers presented Mike and Bev Carrick with a special memento recognizing their support of the 2018 encampment, a looping slideshow displayed Annual Meeting images, and Larry McClure thanked all the Annual Meeting volunteers.
Mark Johnson received a token of appreciation for his long service as chapter president; Mark Dahl, from Lewis & Clark College, described the “Corps of Discovery Online Atlas” project; and the captain of the Columbia River Sternwheeler, Tom Cramblett, delivered an engaging talk on Lewis & Clark on the middle Columbia. The traditional silent auction raised funds for chapter work.
