A Vast and Open Plain: The Writings of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in North Dakota, 1804-1806 by Clay S. Jenkinson

Abstract

Punctuated with sidebar quotes from the Lewis and Clark journals, Rock Hushka's essay, "Traces of theLegacy ofLewis and Clark inCon temporaryArt,"more deeply explores the three exhibit themes and alludes that the journals are metaphors for contemporary artists' responses to those themes. Stressing that the exhibit does not specificallydeal with the Lewis and Clark Expedition nor itslegacy, Hushka demonstrates that recent artists' interpretations of place, race, and memory nevertheless fitwithin the same two-hundred-year-old traditionof illuminating the American experience. Hushka's most intriguingdiscussion is that dealingwithmemory, in which he grapples with the relativenature of history and itsreliance on subjective experiences, stating that "the effort to separate fact from fiction, regarding Lewis and Clark... often resembles psychoanalysis at a cultural level" (p. 59).He likens today's artists tophilosophers and historians? he could eas ilyadd psychoanalysts ? in their attempts to explore ideas,providing a freshpoint ofview on the workings of communal memory. Despite its attractive presentation and myriad images, thispublication does notmake fora casually read coffee-tablebook. The diverse media and topics encountered in a quick skim will make ithard to resist furtherexploration of the volume's profound subject matter and provocative ideas. From modern adaptations of theNative American ledger art tradition to enigmatic landscapes to mixed-media sculptures and collages composed of industrial, commer cial, and natural organic materials, the works of art and related discussions featured in this important book provide challenging new per spectives on the interpretationof theAmerican experience forboth scholars and enthusiasts of American culture. A Vast and Open Plain: TheWritings of theLewis and Clark Expedition in North Dakota, 1804-1806 Edited by Clay S. Jenkinson State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck, 2003. Illustrations, photographs, maps, tables. 648 pages. $49.95 cloth, $34.95 paper. Reviewed byKeith Edgerton Montana State University,Billings Of the 864 days the Corps of Discovery journeyed from St. Louis to thePacific Ocean and back, 215 were spent in what would become North Dakota. Cumulatively, inparts of all threeyears directly comprising the odyssey, theCorps spent more time in North Dakota than itwould in any other place.Without question, Meriwether Lewis andWilliam Clark collected some of theirmost crucial information there, and events thatwould significantlyweigh on the fateof the expedition occurred there, too: the encounters with theMandan and Hidatsa peoples in their earth lodges along the upper Missouri above present-day Bismarck; thedeci sion tobuild FortMandan aswinter quarters in 1804-1805; theaccumulation ofvital information about thevast,uncharted reachesof the Missouri and theRockies that lay ahead of them in the subsequent traveling season; the hiring of the interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau and thedeci sionby thecaptains toallow his young Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, toaccompany theparty intothe unknown recesses of the continent; thebirth of theyoungestmember of theparty,Sacagawea's and Charbonneau's child, Jean Baptiste; the determination of which members and what Reviews 531 materials would be sentback with thekeelboat to St. Louis inApril 1805; the coming to terms with theunforgivingnorthernPlainswinter and thedailywonderment at thevast and boundless northern prairie ecosystems; thehurried return journey in 1806 inwhich Pvt. Pierre Cruzatte, unfortunately and mistakenly, shot Captain Lewis in theposterior in western North Dakota; and, finally,theCorps's fatefuland remarkable reunion innorth-centralNorth Dakota after it had split intoa number of smallerunits in west ern Montana to explore new country. A Vast and Open Plain documents all of this and then some. It isprimarily a compendium of information and almanac of each of those 215 days.Clay Jenkinson,one of theforemostLewis and Clark scholars,has organized thisvolume by presenting readers a day-by-day account from October 13, 1804, toApril 27, 1805, and then again fromAugust 2 to 20,1806, as seen directly through the eyes of the journal writers on the expedition ? Lewis, Clark, Sgts. Patrick Gass and John Ordway, and Pvt. Joseph Whitehouse ? utilizing therecentlypublished Moulton edi tionof the journals. Jenkinsonhas also included miscellaneous material thatpreviouslywas avail able only inDonald Jackson'sLettersof theLewis and Clark Expedition. Interspersed throughout are thorough and capacious editorial docu mentation, the daily meteorology as recorded by theCorps, dozens of color and black-and white photographs, and numerous maps, both contemporary and historical. A graceful fore word by JamesRonda and a lengthysummary introduction by Jenkinson contextualize the volume, as do theeditor's concluding...