Archeologist Traces the Path of Lewis, Clark

Much as Lewis and Clark were obsessed with reaching the Pacific two centuries ago, Ken Karsmizki has an obsession of his own: To find and preserve as many of their campsites as possible.

He has identified one major campsite, the Lower Portage site near present-day Great Falls, Mont., where the expedition spent 12 days, and is on the trail of others.

But the 53-year-old archeologist and historian says time is running out for definitively locating the other spots where the 33-man expedition camped on their 1804-1806 “Voyage of Discovery” into the uncharted territories of the West.

Once the bicentennial is over, he predicts, interest will wane and funding will dry up.

“How do you preserve it? First, you have to find it. Tomorrow it may be a parking lot,” he said in his cluttered office in this Columbia River town sitting on Lewis and Clark’s route to the Pacific.

Karsmizki estimates the expedition set up camp at some 600 sites in the 863 days the expedition was gone, many of them used by only one or two men, perhaps a hunting detail that split off from the main group.

For the last 15 years, Karsmizki has examined possible camping sites along the expedition’s route in Montana, Oregon, North and South Dakota, Idaho and elsewhere. He’s been guided by the journals of Lewis and Clark, which give a rough idea of where they camped.

“People have had access to Lewis and Clark’s journals for some 200 years. The next step is not to focus on what was written, but on archeology. There must be much that they did that never made it into their journals,” he said.

Karsmizki and his team get down on hands and knees to dig in their search for signs of the explorers.

Satellite imagery supplied by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and data from the Air Force Research Laboratory are assisting Karsmizki. In some cases, the technology can reduce a potential dig site from several square miles to a matter of acres.

Is it an obsession?

“The answer would be yes,” said Karsmizki, who in March came to the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles from the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont.

Fifteen years ago, he knew little about Lewis and Clark.

“In the course of 15 years I have learned so much about what they did and how they did it. You have to use every archeological technique and squeeze out all the evidence with it.”

His interest was aroused at a 1986 meeting in Montana of people who were discussing Lewis and Clark.

“When I heard them talking about the camps it struck a chord with me. Camps are what archeologists find. They may be 10,000 years old, they may be 200 years old. The 10,000-year-olds didn’t leave maps or journals; Lewis and Clark did,” Karsmizki said.

“I thought, if we can find 10,000-year-old camps, we ought to be able to find 200-year-old camps, so I said, ‘Let’s do that.’ ”

It was then, he said, that he realized there was no physical evidence of any Lewis and Clark campsites.

The search for those sites has consumed his life.

The expedition spent the winters of 1804-1805 at Ft. Mandan, N.D., and 1805-1806 at Ft. Clatsop near Astoria, Ore. But the exact sites are not known. Karsmizki is looking for the precise location of both forts.

Archeologists say a replica of Ft. Clatsop, built based on the explorers’ drawings in 1955, probably is not the exact site of the original, but many say they believe it is close.

“There have got to be things they left behind,” he said, adding that even the forts themselves, which likely rotted in place, should be discernible.

Karsmizki also hopes to replicate the cargo that Lewis and Clark took on their voyage.

“We’re going through the journal, page by page, and every time an object is mentioned, it goes into the database,” he said. Then he goes to the Smithsonian, or to museums in England, to find out what the object would have looked like.

“They gave a corn mill to the Mandans,” he said. “What did a corn mill look like back then?”

At Lower Portage, Karsmizki has found a tent stake and butchered buffalo bones that carbon-date to the Lewis and Clark era, a rifle flint and campfire residue that dates to the same time.

He’s also found a musket ball near where he believes Ft. Clatsop stood.

Although National Parks Service archeologists question whether the lead is either a musket ball or related to Lewis and Clark, Karsmizki says he is convinced he is right.

An analysis shows the lead came from southeastern Missouri. Karsmizki went to the archives of what was then called the Provider of Public Supplies and found that lead purchased in those years for musket balls came from the same region.

“It’s not conclusive, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty good,” he said. “That’s why I say, ‘Here’s a place we’d like to keep looking.’ ”

Only limited work was done on the Clatsop site last summer, and Karsmizki, who worked there earlier, was not involved.

The objective back then was to find soil with a high mercury content, which would tell them where the Ft. Clatsop latrines were located.

Many of the expedition members took pills containing mercury, which was believed then to be a cure for syphilis. Mercury, which was compounded in a manner that passed it through their bodies, stays in the soil.

The belief was that if the latrines would be located, the fort could be located.

Karsmizki contends some soil showed a slightly higher mercury level than the surrounding soil. National Parks Service scientists disagree.

Karsmizki, who is supported by an arrangement with the Discovery Channel plus private and corporate funding, says indications are that there is a campsite in what is now The Dalles--a town at the eastern entrance to the majestic Columbia River Gorge.

He hopes to use drawings made by Lewis and Clark along with overlays supplied by NASA to find it.

He also is looking for the site of Ft. Mandan at Washburn, N.D., Ft. Manuel in South Dakota, where the guide Sacajawea died and Ft. Ramon in Montana, a fur-trading post some of the expedition members were involved in later.

And he hopes to find a boat that was carrying specimens Lewis and Clark were sending back to President Jefferson when it sank in Chesapeake Bay.

But he seems most enthusiastic about the possibilities of the Lower Portage and the Upper Portage, which are 20 miles apart on the Missouri River. The expedition had to carry everything from one camp to the other because of the falls.

At the Lower Portage, he said, they made carts to carry equipment around the falls.

“There must be chips and sawdust,” he said. “Everything came off the boat” to be carried around the falls. When that happened, he said, the chance that something would be left behind increased.

At the Upper Portage, the expedition buried a collapsible iron boat frame that was to have been covered with animal hides. It didn’t work and the expedition apparently had planned on coming back for it on the return trip.

It would be the single most important artifact of the expedition, he said, but it has remained elusive.

“I feel they probably did not pick it up,” he said. “The expedition was broken into four groups at that point. It weighed 220 pounds and they didn’t have the manpower.”

He said they may have traded it to the Indians, but there is no mention in the journals of trading bulk metal, and there is ample mention of what they did trade.

“They wrote that the boat failed because they had taken the hair off of the buffalo hides they used to cover it,” he said. “That hair has to be there.”

The remains of the boat, he said, could be displayed.

“When you are an archeologist, you want information,” he said. “If you’re the public, you want objects, you want to see it.”

He said the Air Force Research Laboratory recently brought in two robotic vehicles usually used to find unexploded bombs and mines to help find the remains of the boat.

Geochemists, he said, estimate it could have lost half of its mass because of rust.

“They usually report within a two-week time period but they were collecting data Sept. 10, 11 and 12, which is probably why we haven’t seen any data yet. It’s not a priority due to the world situation.”