REPLICA OF LEWIS-CLARK BOAT COMING

A replica of the type of boat used by Lewis and Clark during their expedition will dock at Cape Girardeau next week. It will be filled with adventurers in full costume.

The flat-bottomed pirogue boat will dock at Cape Girardeau's Mississippi riverfront about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. It will be open for free tours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

The 39-foot boat is on its way from St. Charles to the Fort Massac Encampment in Metropolis, Ill. The annual encampment brings hundreds of re-enactors from the 1800s together for a living history event.

While in Cape Girardeau, re-enactors will present a black-powder and historic-firearms demonstration Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The show is open to the public. The re-enactors also will visit area schools and present programs.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark traveled about 8,000 miles on their expedition westward. From 1803 to 1806, the explorers traveled from St. Louis to the Pacific coast and back again. The expedition set out with a keelboat and two pirogues, a type of dugout canoe.

The builder of the replica pirogue, Glen Bishop of Discovery Expedition, also built a keelboat like those used by Lewis and Clark. The boat made a 450-mile journey from St. Charles to St. Joseph in 1996, and was filmed for a documentary on the Lewis and Clark expedition. In January the boat was destroyed in a warehouse fire.

The pirogue boat is the second historic vessel to visit Cape Girardeau this fall: In September, a replica of Christopher Columbus' Nina was in Cape Girardeau for eight days.