Lewis and Clark's journey, then and now
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Sergeant Floyd's Monument honors the only member of Lewis and Clark's crew to die during the two-year trip. Located on a steep bluff in Sioux City, the monument offers a good view of the Missouri River bottoms and surrounding Loess Hills. The nearby Sergeant Floyd Welcome Center contains indoor exhibits about the expedition.
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This article appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of the Iowa Natural Heritage magazine.
By freelancer Bill Horine
Nearly 200 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark to explore the new Louisiana Purchase. The 45 men of the Voyage of Discovery left St. Louis on May 14, 1804 in one large keel boat and two pirogues.
After 64 days and some 570 miles up the Missouri River, the crew reached what we now call Iowa. They traveled up the Missouri River along Iowa's border for 37 days and approximately 300 river miles.
With the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's epic journey approaching, many Iowans and tourists will be retracing the route of the Voyage of Discovery. By all means, make the trip, celebrate this amazing journey-and do some exploring on your own as to how much we've changed this land in just 200 years..
Changes to the land
July 16th Monday 1804 (Clark): … an extensive prarie on the S.S.. This Prarie I call Ball [bald] pated Prarie from a range of Ball Hills parrelel to the river & at from 3 to 6 miles distant from it, and extends as far up and Down as I Can see."
Like today's visitors to western Iowa, Lewis and Clark were struck by the unique Loess Hills formation. That "bald-pated prarie" is now recognized as the hills in the Waubonsie State Park in extreme southwest Iowa. Today, however, those hills are covered with a thick forest of oaks and other hardwoods. The forests are lovely, but much of the natural prairie is gone-a victim of human fire suppression.
Changes to the river
12th August Sunday 1804 (Clark): … Sent one man across where we took Dinner yesterday to Step off the distance across Isthmus, he made it 974 yards, and the bend around is 18¾ miles. [So they had traveled 18¾ river miles around a huge bend and gained less than a mile of land.]
Today's Missouri River is very different from the river Lewis and Clark explored. About 32% has been channelized (including the entire Iowa portion), 35% of the river is impounded behind dams and only 33% remains that Lewis and Clark might recognize as the river they explored in 1804-1806.
In the 37 days that the Voyage of Discovery traveled along Iowa's western border in 1804, they measured a little more than 310 river miles-sometimes through circuitous loops like that described above. By 1879 the river itself had cut off oxbows and shortened its channel to 211 miles. Later, humans redefined the channel further with wing dams, cutting across bends and eliminating sandbars to aid barge traffic. Now at 182 river miles, Iowa's western border is entirely channelized.
Changes to native species
July the 30th Monday 1804: (Clark) ….Captain Lewis and My Self walked in the Prarie on the top of the Bluff and observed the most butifull prospects imagionable, this Prarie is Covered with grass about 10 or 12 Inch high….Jo. Fields Killed a Brarow [badger]…this animale burrows in the ground & feeds on Bugs and flesh principally the little Dogs of the Prarie, also Something of Vegetable Kind….Serjt. Floyd verrry unwell a bad Cold &c.
July 31st Tuesday 1804, camp at Council Bluffs (Lewis & Clark): …..the deer and bear begin to get scarce and the Elk begin to appear……Car fish is verry Common and easy taken in any part of this river. Some are nearly white perticilary above the Platte River. sum are nearly white….the Praries Contain Cheres, Apple, Grapes, Currents, Rasp berry, Gooseberris, Hastlenuts and a great variety of Plants and Flours not Common to the U.S. What a field for a Botents [Botanist] and a natirless [naturalist]
As the prairie disappeared from Iowa, so did many native plant and animal species. Channelizing the river had further unintended consequences. Many of the oxbows that channelizers formed by cutting off the bends were proudly converted to parks and recreational areas at the time. But channelization increased the river's current to 5-7 miles per hour, as opposed to the 3-3½ miles per hour in earlier times. The faster current scoured out the river bottom as much as 7-10 feet below normal. The lower riverbed helped drain those oxbows, reducing or eliminating their value for recreation and wildlife habitat.
In less than 200 years since their "discovery", we've changed the land, river, flora and fauna along western Iowa. We're still discovering the consequences of those changes.
Read more excerpts from the journal of Lewis and Clark.
Bill Horine is a freelance outdoor and travel writer, lecturer and photographer from Nevada, Iowa. He won INHF's 1998 Hagie Heritage Award.
