Lewis and Clark re-enactors go into unknown

CAIRO, Ill. -- The journey 200 years ago by Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery has been compared to a space shot. In exploring the West, the adventurers were leaping into the unknown as surely as the first astronauts did. It could be said that Cairo, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, was the jumping-off point.

Only five years earlier, the garrison upstream at Fort Massac had fired a cannon round across the bow of a Spanish galleon.

"That," said Scott Mandrell, pointing to the land west across the Mississippi, "was Louisiana. They were entering international waters."

Mandrell is portraying Capt. Meriwether Lewis for the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, the official group of bicentennial re-enactors. They reached Cairo Saturday afternoon, arriving in their replicas of the red pirogue and keelboat the Corps of Discovery used.

More than 100 people were at Fort Defiance Park on the chilly Saturday afternoon to greet the re-enactors, who were the star attractions in a program that began with the presentation of colors by a Girl Scout troop and singing performances that included a rendition of "Ol' Man River." Cairo also has mounted a Lewis and Clark exhibition at its Custom House Museum.

The re-enactors will stay at Fort Defiance until Thursday. They will reach Cape Girardeau Friday and remain encamped through Nov. 23, the date Lewis and Clark actually arrived at Cape Girardeau founder Don Louis Lorimier's trading post 200 years ago.

Accompanying the re-enactors will be U.S. Army Corps of Engineers barge carrying Lewis and Clark exhibits. The tented National Park Service exhibit called "Corps of Discovery II" is scheduled to be in Cape Girardeau from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4.

Dogged on details

The St. Charles re-enactors are attempting to recreate the expedition as closely as possible. They wear period clothing. Each portrays a real person. A playful Newfoundland has the part of Lewis' dog, Seaman.

Some 300 men have signed up to play roles during the re-enactment, which will last more than three years. One role has been difficult to keep filled, that of William Clark's slave, York. "That is an unpleasant part of the story," said Mandrell, a National Guard officer and teacher in the Clayton, Mo., school system. He hopes to find more black volunteers.

"It's a story that belongs to all Americans," he said.

Some elements of the voyage can't be authentically reproduced. The rivers they are traveling are deeper and swifter than the rivers Lewis and Clark rode. For that reason, the U.S. Coast Guard requires that the boats be equipped with motors. In demonstrations, the re-enactors use the same river techniques the expedition did -- sailing, rowing, poling and cordelling (towing the boat with ropes) -- but motors are the primary means of propulsion.

The Corps of Discovery used Cairo as a training ground. They took dry runs with the boats and worked on celestial navigation. There were 22 to 25 members when they reached Cairo. At Cairo, Lewis and Clark realized they would need more manpower to begin going upriver for the first time in the voyage.

Aubrey Williams, a blacksmith from Indiana, is portraying the expedition's head blacksmith, John Shields. Shields was one of the few married men on the journey. He proved invaluable, especially during the winter the expedition spent at the Mandan Indian village in North Dakota. There he made tools the expedition traded to the American Indians for corn.

The process of blacksmithing has not changed much in 200 years, he said. He has brought along a charcoal forge, a bellows, an anvil, hammers and tongs and has made brackets for the keelboat and other items the expedition needs.

Being a re-enactor gives him "insights into the process of history," Williams said. "It becomes much more real this way."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

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