Your Scribe has concluded he would have been a poor candidate for the Lewis and Clark expedition two centures ago.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were deployed by President Thomas Jefferson to survey the Northwest Territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.

They left in about 1806, and led a team from St. Louis to Oregon (and back) in an era that predates "cabin country."

To wit, there were no cabins - just generous Indians, without whom this band of ambitious Caucasions would never have reached the Pacific.

I have recently finished reading a book about the journey ("Undaunted Courage," by Stephen Ambrose), and here are a few observations:

- This weekend I almost lost my canoe, which is not a good sign for one who aspires to be a cross-country outdoorsman. The Sandy River in Franklin County rose about 8 feet following the rains, and picked up my canoe which was on the river bank. Luckily it was tied to a tree, or I would have had to go door to door in (downstream) Norridgewock to locate it.

- I do not appreciate the cold. It was chilly in the cabin Saturday night after the Jotul went out, and colder yet in the morning. Lewis wrote about the joys of sleeping in the open, and waking up with six inches of snow atop the blankets. He gushed like it was the (present day) equivalent of gargling mouth wash, but I got cranky that the cabin took so long to heat up again.

- I like three squares per day. The Lewis and Clark team had a feast-or-famine relationship with eating. They had plenty of venison and buffalo meat in the upper Midwest, but had to subsist on berries and dried corn when they went through the mountains of Montana. On Saturday night, I ate out at the Granary restaurant in Farmington, and sat very close to the comforting fire, thank you very much.

- Lewis couldn't handle life after his return from the Pacific. He was a national hero at 35, and was offered writing projects, speaking engagements and/or a job with Jefferson. But he became depressed and killed himself in 1809, just months after returning. Say what you will about modern psychotic prescription drugs, but they are capable of altering moods. . . .

E-mail this entry to a friend