Join the Voyage of Discovery - Sweeny Creek, Montana
Posted by: flyingmoose
N 46° 15.678 W 106° 16.780
13T E 401380 N 5123876
Information sign about the Corp of Discovery at a Eastbound rest stop.
Waymark Code: WM132B6
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 08/31/2020
Published By: RB2
Views: 3
Montana Tourism has a series of signs for the Corp of Discovery throughout the state, this is one of them.
Sign text:
Wherever you are in Montana, you stand in the pathway of Lewis and Clark. Their 1804-1806 expedition was a grand adventure: to investigate the people and resources of the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase and to seek a navigable passage across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. Like the French and Spanish who made similar voyages across North America, the Corp of Discovery brought back information that would change life in this land forever.
NATIONS IN TRANSFORMATION
The 19th century brought tumult to North America. Indian nations, recovering from five waves of smallpox, pushed west as Europeans raced to conquer more territories. Though others had explored, traded and trapped in the Northern Plains, Lewis and Clark were the first to come for military, scientific and economic development reasons. Their expedition defined agendas and relationships that people of the West are still sorting out- between different cultures, and between people and the land.
MONTANA LEGACY: MANY CULTURES, MANY LANDMARKS
The Corp of Discovery included Indians, French, Euro-Americans, men of mixed European and Indian decent, one black, a woman and a baby. Indian people of many nations fed, guided and helped the Corp with few violent altercations. Montana today is a land of many cultures, and its diversity is part of our regions identity.
In what we now call Montana, Lewis and Clark explored 1,900 miles of wilderness, catalogued 63 species of plants and animals new to science, and charted significant geographic features. Seven of these are National Historical Landmarks and Monuments: Pompeys Pillar, the Great Falls Portage, the Three Forks of the Missouri, Lemhi Pass, Lolo Pass, Traveller's Rest and Upper Missouri Breaks.
There are still places in Montana where you may see the landscape, wildlife and native plants just as the Corp described in their journals: rich, raw and full of possibilities. You can also see the evidence of cultural cooperation conflicts and collisions in values that have defined the West for two centuries.