#1664 The Rivers of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Listening to America

History, Politics, Unitedstates, Society & Culture, American

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Clay and his good friend Russ Eagle discuss the rivers Lewis and Clark traveled from Pittsburgh to the Pacific Ocean, including the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Clearwater, the Snake, and the Columbia. The paradox of Clay’s 2025 Airstream journey along the Lewis and Clark Trail is that they floated America’s rivers, and Clay has been driving along the roads closest to those rivers. To overcome this, he has contrived ways to get on the rivers of the expedition. In North Dakota, he floated for three days in a pontoon from Fort Rice to Bismarck with two young comrades. Just north of Yellowstone National Park, he and his friends, including his daughter and her fiancé, took a day-long raft trip on the Upper Yellowstone, where it remains a whitewater stream. As they recorded this podcast, Clay and Russ, plus 20 others, were about to float the famous White Cliffs section of the Missouri, east of Fort Benton, Montana. And Clay plans to get passage on an excursion boat near the mouth of the great Columbia River. Why are rivers so important to Clay? What is it about the source of mighty rivers that so engages his historical imagination? This podcast was recorded on July 20, 2025.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome to the introduction to this week's podcast.
0:04.0	I'm just about to start my annual Lewis and Clark cultural tour.
0:08.0	People have been coming in on planes from all over the country and they're gathered for the moment in Great Falls.
0:14.0	They'll be here in Fort Benton about 40 miles away.
0:17.0	By mid-afternoon, we'll have our orientation meeting in early evening at a group group dinner people will be given dry bags to put in such gear as they need for the
0:24.9	three days we will spend on the Missouri through the white cliffs the most
0:28.5	extraordinary part of the entire Missouri River system then we'll come back and
0:34.1	shower and have an evening on the deck with wonderful musicians,
0:38.8	good friends of mine, and then off to the Bitterrood Mountains to hike for three days,
0:44.7	camp two nights up on the Lolo Trail.
0:48.2	It's such a joy to talk about all of this with Ross Eagle.
0:51.6	He's been my dear friend for many years.
0:53.7	He came on this trip as a
0:55.2	client, as a paid guest, fell in love with this journey. This great cultural tour has been here
1:05.4	many times now and now he and his wonderful wife, Liz, you know, Liz of the gumbo haughtiness.
1:14.3	But leaving that aside, there are camp hosts and they're wonderful friends and great at
1:19.3	all that they do.
1:20.7	So we're about to embark.
1:22.2	This will be my 24th or 25th time on the White Cliff section of the Missouri.
1:27.1	It never gets old. But Russ and I needed
1:30.3	and wanted to produce a podcast before we embark, not only because we may not survive, but
1:36.3	because this is a really interesting topic. And Russ said he wanted to talk about rivers. He
	...

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