In Lewis and Clark’s footsteps

The bicentennial of the epic Lewis and Clark expedition, which mapped the U.S. west of the Mississippi, kicks off next month at the Virginia home of the man who ordered it, President Thomas Jefferson. The next four years will bring events across the country. They will mark the 1804-06 journey of the 48-member Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, which traveled from Missouri to Oregon and back.

The team failed in its main mission: to scour the country’s vast new Louisiana Purchase for the Northwest Passage, a water connection that Jefferson and others erroneously believed linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But the trip was a watershed, bringing back news of the West’s Native American cultures and natural environment, and opening the region for European settlement.

For the bicentennial, the entrance hall of Jefferson’s Monticello estate, near Charlottesville, Va., is being refashioned as Indian Hall, where the president displayed Indian crafts, plants and animal specimens collected by Lewis and Clark.

Most of the original objects have been lost, except for antlers from North Dakota, said Wayne Mogielnicki, a Monticello spokesman. Based on inventories from the time, members of the Lakota, Mandan-Hidatsa, Cherokee and other Native American peoples have reproduced items using original methods.

The exhibit, “Framing the West at Monticello,” will run Jan. 16 through Dec. 31, 2003. Tours of the property next year will focus on the expedition.

The house is open daily; hours vary. Entrance fees: $13 for adults, $6 ages 6 to 11. (434) 984-9822, www.monticello.org.

Other openings and events include:

December: A $7-million Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center opened this month in Hartford, Ill., 15 miles north of East St. Louis. The center, one of several in the U.S. devoted to the expedition, is across the Mississippi from the mouth of the Missouri River, near where the trip began. It includes a 55-foot replica of the explorers’ keelboat. In May 2004, reenactors will depart from a replica of Lewis and Clark’s fortress here.

Oct. 14 to 26: A commemoration of Lewis’ arrival in Louisville, Ky., and his meeting with Clark will include performances, exhibits, Native American and African American programs and an expanded version of the annual Falls of the Ohio Lewis and Clark River Festival.

January 2004: An exhibit of more than 500 Lewis and Clark artifacts will open at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis and will later travel to several cities.

An events schedule through 2006 can be found at www.lewisandclark200.org. The site is maintained by the National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, which moved its headquarters from Portland, Ore., to St. Louis during the summer. Its phone, (888) 999-1803, is shared with the Missouri Historical Society.