Lewis and Clark Fair Will Cost Five Million Dollars and Will Be a Wonder W.E. Brindley PORTLAND, Ore. Feb. 3. - There are still four months remaining before the Lewis and Clark exposition will open its doors to the visiting thousands on June 1 next and yet at this early date the grounds have been put in shape, lawns sodded or seeded, and eight exposition palaces, gleaming ivory white in their ornamental staff, are completed. Some of them are already being used for the storing of exhibits, which have been arriving daily in carload lots since the beginning of the exposition year. The question as to the fair being completed in every detail long before the opening day is settled beyond the possibility of doubt. So great has been the demand for exhibit space that it has been found necessary to erect another building, and work on the structure has already been begun. The new exhibits palace, which bears the name Palace of Manufactures, Liberal Arts and Varied Industries, is to contain 90,000 feet of floor space, thus equaling in size the Agricultural building, which is the largest structure on the grounds. The exposition will commemorate the journey of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who, with a party of hardy adventurers, crossed the mountains in 1805 and explored the Oregon country, thus giving the United States the power to make her only acquisition of territory by right of discovery. The exposition, at first conceived by its promoters as little more than a local industrial fair, has now assumed proportions that make it world wide in scope. The readjustment made necessary by the construction of the new building includes turning over the former Liberal Arts building to exhibitors from Europe, and giving over the entire space in the former Foreign Exhibits building to oriental exhibitors. World Wide in Its Scope. The exposition, at first conceived by its promoters as little more than a local industrial fair, has now assumed proportions that make it world wide in scope. The addition of numerous new features from time to time makes it certain that the fair will be one that will prove of general interest. As in the case of St. Louis, a specialty will be made of "live" exhibits, making the fair an exponent of modern manufacturing methods rather than a museum of evidences of progress. Foreign participation will be on a scale not dreamed of when the exposition project was conceived, almost every nation on the globe being represented while the majority of the states in the Union will make official state participation, many erecting state pavilions. The exposition will commemorate the journey of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who, with a party of hardy adventurers, crossed the mountains in 1805 and explored the Oregon country, thus giving the United States the power to make her only acquisition of territory by right of discovery. The exposition will represent an expenditure approximating $5,000,000. The site, by all odds the most beautiful ever utilized for such a purpose, occupies 402 acres and adjoins the principal residential district of Portland. The site comprises a natural park, and the principal exhibition palaces, nestling among the trees, overlook a beautiful little lake, called Guild's lake, and the Willamette river. In the center of the lake is a peninsula, which looks from the mainland like a verdure covered island, while in the distance rise four mighty snow capped mountains - Mount Hood, Mountain Rainier, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens. The principal admission gates will be between pillars of the ornate colonnade entrance, which is within a stone's throw of Columbia court, the central plaza of the exposition. The court consists of two wide avenues, with beautiful sunken gardens between them, and which are flanked by the agricultural palace and the European exhibits building. On either side of these buildings, with their short sides facing the lake, are situated the other main exhibition palaces, which bear the names, Oriental Exhibits, Forestry, Manufacturers, Liberal Arts and Varied Industries, Mines and Metallurgy, Fine Arts, and Machinery, Electricity and Transportation. The buildings, with the exception of the forestry building, are all covered with ivory white staff, and are built on one general architectural scheme, embodying a free form of the Spanish renaissance. A broad flight of steps, known as the As in the case of St. Louis, a specialty will be made of "live" exhibits, making the fair an exponent of modern manufacturing methods rather than a museum of evidences of progress. "Grand Stairway," lead from Columbia court to the bandstand on the lake shore. The slope on either side of the stairway is terraced, affording a delightful resting place from which to listen to the band concerts and watch the pyrotechnic displays on the lake. In the western part of the site a considerable portion of the grounds have been left almost in its natural state, forming Centennial park, and beyond this park, in a little valley, are situated the experimental gardens, where all manner of western farm and garden products will be displayed as they actually grow. On the Trail. Guild's lake is spanned by the beautiful Bridge of Nations. The end of the bridge adjoining the mainland will be called the Trail. The Trail, which is to be the amusement street of the fair, is 150 feet wide and 800 feet long. The shows will be located on either side of a wide avenue. Many new attractions are planned for this popular feature. On the Government Peninsula, which is reached by the way of the Bridge of Nations, the main government building occupies three acres. The structure is flanked by two towers, each 260-feet high, and ornate peristyles lead to smaller structures which will house the territorial, irrigation and fisheries exhibits, a fourth smaller building being used as a life saving station. The government's exhibit will represent an aggregate expenditure of $800,000. While our own government will be the largest national participant, nearly every nation that arises to the dignity of a place on the map will be represented at the exposition. England will maintain her dignity against German, and Germany against France, while Japan and Russia will struggle for supremacy in While our own government will be the largest national participant, nearly every nation that arises to the dignity of a place on the map will be represented at the exposition. a battle of peace. China will have a great display, and Siam and Ceylon, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Turkey, Austria and Egypt will be represented. Even Morocco and Persia will exhibit. Sweden and Denmark have likewise fallen into line, as have Holland and Belgium and numerous powers of less importance. Great interest will center about the exhibits from Japan and Russia, both nations having been attracted by the oriental aspect of the fair. The Japanese will occupy one third of the oriental building and are planning for a big national pavilion, in which will be shown their products, manufactures, educational conditions, and displays of fine and liberal arts. Russian participation will be on much the same lines, particular attention being given to silk weaving and other manufacturing industries. State participation from every part of the Union is now assured . The States Are Coming. State participation from every part of the Union is now assured and a number of the wealthier commonwealths will erect pavilions which will serve as club houses for their citizens visiting the fair. The Oregon appropriation, $450,000, is the largest ever made by a state of so small a population. The Atlantic seaboard states have shown an interest in the exposition that is a source of great gratification to the management. It now seems certain that New York's appropriation of $85,000 will be increased by $25,000. Massachusetts has appropriated $15,000, and will move her St. Louis building to Portland, while Vermont and New Hampshire will erect pavilions. In the middle west, North Dakota, Minnesota and Missouri will transfer the cream of their St. Louis displays to Portland, supplementing them with additional displays gathered for the occasion, while Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana are likely to make official participation of some sort. The main exhibition palaces bear the names Oriental Exhibits, Forestry, Manufacturers, Liberal Arts and Varied Industries, Mines and Metallurgy, Fine Arts, and Machinery, Electricity and Transportation. Of the states of the Pacific Northwest, which are directly interested in making the exposition a success, Washington has appropriated $75,000 for the erection of a building and the collection and installation of a suitable display. California originally appropriated $20,000, and this has recently increased by appropriation to $90,000. California will erect a building in the form of a cross, each wing being a reproduction of an old Catholic mission. Idaho has recently chosen a site for a state building, which will cost about $10,000, and will increase her appropriation to cover the expense. Montana and Utah, which originally appropriated $10,000 each, are expected to make additional appropriations and erect pavilions. It Will Be Unique. The Lewis and Clark fair will be unique among international expositions in that it is built with a view to compactness without crowding. The exposition can be seen and studied within the time and means which the average person has at his disposal. The exposition will contain the cream of earlier fairs, supplemented by valuable exhibits collected especially for the fair. In keeping with the intention of making the fair truly representative of western life and western resources, the forestry display will be one of the most interesting exhibits at the fair. The forestry building, constructed after the manner of a mammoth log palace, is a structure unique in exposition history. The building is 102 feet wide by 205 feet long, and its great height is 70 feet. In the construction of the building two miles of five and six foot logs, five miles of poles and tons of shakes and cedar bark shingles were used. Interest Is Widespread. The exposition management has been showered with requests for literature bearing on the fair, and reports from the east indicate that a general interest is being taken in the enterprise. The low rates offered by the railroads, by which a person living in the Mississippi valley can go and come for $45, while people farther east may make the trip at a one fare rate, assure a large attendance from states east of the Rocky mountains. The exposition authorities, while not wishing to seem too sanguine, have no fears of small attendance, nor of the fair not being completed in every detail long before the opening day. The Spokesman Review, February 5, 1905, Copyright 1905. Reprinted with permission of The Spokesman-Review. For information on the Centennial exposition: www.ohs.org (to "Collections", then "Manuscripts" for references associated with Portland's 1905 Lewis & Clark exhibition, or contact the Oregon Historical Society at 503.306-5247)

1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition, the forestry building. The strucure was 102 feet wide by 205 feet long, and its great height was 70 feet. Construction of the building used two miles of five and six foot logs, five miles of poles and tons of shakes and cedar bark shingles. (courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, #cn 62922, www.ohs.org) Story of the Chinook Salmon and His Foes on the Columbia River Lewis and Clark Found King of Fresh Water Fishes a Refreshing Change From Dog - How Salmon Are Caught - The Fishermen Who Catch Them - How the Fish are Packed - The Exhibit at the Lewis and Clark Exposition. By W.E. Brindley A century ago two hardy adventurers, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who, in their efforts to cross the country to the Pacific with a band of 40 followers, had suffered untold hardships, including the eating of dog, found a most refreshing change of diet when they reached the Columbia river. There for the first time they saw the famous Chinook salmon, king of fresh water fish, and tasted its luscious, rose pink flesh. To the weary, half starved travelers the salmon seemed a most welcome addition to a menu which had for weeks consisted of crow, berries, an occasional wolf or deer and the wolfish dogs which they bought of the Indians. The captains recorded the incident of the change of diet in their journals, and Captain Clark made a rude sketch of the fish. Salmon Exhibit at the Fair. At the Lewis and Clark exposition, which is to be held at Portland, Ore., during this coming summer, from June 1 to October 15, in commemoration of the journey of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a most interesting exhibit will consist of a complete exposition of the salmon industry, together with specimens of live salmon in tanks, and dead salmon in glass jars, of salmon eggs and salmon fry and methods of salmon hatching. The exhibit will show how the salmon are canned, and how they are preserved by cold storage. It will be one of the many interesting things about the western world's fair, which, while a world's fair in every sense, will aim particularly to show the resources and progress of the Pacific Northwest, a country which was added to the domain of the United States as a direct result of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Spokesman-Review, February 26, 1905, excerpted. Copyright 1905. Reprinted with permission of The Spokesman-Review.

200 Years Later

Explorers: Nation's river system is 'sick' During 4,000-mile journey from St. Louis to Portland, duo find rivers worse than expected. By Jeff Barnard, of The Associated Press PORTLAND, Ore. -- Two men, who traced the western route of Lewis and Clark said Thursday they found the nation's river system in far worse shape than they expected when they set out on the 4,000-mile journey. "We came into this with our eyes open, but we did not know the scope," Tom Warren said at a news conference. "The rivers remind me of an epitaph on a tombstone," said John Hilton. "It said, 'I told you I was sick.'" The men said they found rivers drowned by dams, dried up by irrigation and fouled by agricultural and industrial pollution. "The rivers remind me of an epitaph on a tombstone. It said, 'I told you I was sick.'" After the news conference, the men boarded a jetboat for a six-hour trip to Astoria. There they got in canoes and poled up the Lewis and Clark River to Fort Clatsop National Memorial, a re-creation of the place where the explorers spent the winter of 1805 before returning east. "It's one thing when you read the journals and another when you feel it," Warren said. "We've gotten to feel it." Fort Clatsop National Memorial superintendent Cynthia Orlando presented Warren and Hilton with bronze medals commemorating their trip and praised them for bringing so much public attention to the state of the environment. A fiddle player played "The Rose Tree," an 18th century reel as Warren and Hilton beached their fiberglass canoes on the muddy landing at Fort Clatsop. In the bows of the canoes were two park employees dressed in buckskins, coonskin caps and red life jackets. They crossed 40 dams ascending the Missouri River system and eight going down the Snake and Columbia rivers. The first 800 miles of the Missouri River was a "muddy ditch" filled with barges. Warren, 39, is a chiropractor from Tulsa, Okla., and Hilton, 47, is a college administrator from Flat River, Mo. They set out from St. Louis on June 1 to follow the journey Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark took 187 years ago. The expedition helped open the West to commerce and settlement. Lewis and Clark left St. Louis on May 14, 1804, with 45 men, a 55-foot keelboat and two large canoes to trace the Missouri River to its headwaters for the first time. According to the theories of the day, they expected to make an easy half-day's hike across gentle ground to the headwaters of the Columbia River, and follow that to the Pacific. President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition to find a Northwest Passage that would wrest the fur trade from the British and an alternative to the perilous sailing around Cape Horn to China. It took Lewis and Clark a year and a half to reach the mouth of the Columbia. Warren and Hilton took three months. Where Lewis and Clark poled, rowed, sailed and towed their boats up the Missouri, Warren and Hilton left behind their jetboat and poled canoes 100 miles up the Beaverhead River. "It's like climbing a mountain, on water," Warren said. They rode horses and bicycles to trace the explorers' 350-mile route across the Bitterroot Mountains, then got back into canoes to go down the Clearwater River. Arriving at Lewiston, they returned to the jetboat to descend the Snake River to the Columbia. They crossed 40 dams ascending the Missouri River system and eight going down the Snake and Columbia rivers. The first 800 miles of the Missouri River was a "muddy ditch" filled with barges, Warren said. The Beaverhead in Montana suffered from water withdrawals for irrigation. Where Lewis and Clark saw timber on the banks of the Columbia, Warren and Hilton stood in a meeting room of a big hotel after stopping in Portland. The decline of Pacific salmon on the Columbia system from 30 million in Lewis and Clark's time to 300,000 now illustrates the crisis state of rivers . Ted Strong, director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, welcomed Warren and Hilton on behalf of native Americans, and said he hoped their trip would help restore the health of rivers hurt by development. "When Lewis and Clark guided their canoes and rafts on the Columbia River they did not realize that while on the surface they encountered Indian nations, there were other nations that lived underneath the water," he said. "Those nations are the nations of aquatic life, primarily the salmon." Kevin Coyle, president of American Rivers, a conservation group that helped sponsor the trip, presented Warren and Hilton with medals. He said the decline of Pacific salmon on the Columbia system from 30 million in Lewis and Clark's time to 300,000 now illustrates the crisis state of rivers. "The rivers are sending us a message," he said. "They are leading the decline."

River of Kings In years past, the Spokane River was home to millions of salmon, which brought bounty to the region's tribes Jim Kershner, Staff writer, Spokesman Review Everybody knows that salmon once surged through the Spokane River. But not everyone knows that it was, literally, one of the king rivers of the Northwest: The Spokane River spawned the biggest of the big salmon, summer chinooks (kings) that were commonly 50 to 80 pounds. The Spokane River was one of the most productive salmon streams in the entire Columbia system. The summer fishing camps at Spokane Falls were famous among many tribes, even tribes from far away. The total number of salmon running up the Spokane probably approached a million annually, of which about 300,000 were harvested by the Spokane tribe and other tribes. The Spokane River spawned the biggest of the big salmon, summer chinooks (kings) that were commonly 50 to 80 pounds. Spokane's early hotels did a thriving business among Eastern fishermen. The salmon were Spokane's first major tourist attraction. And then they were gone. After hundreds of thousands of years of salmon runs, it took less than a century to kill off the runs entirely. Actually, it took less than two days - the day that Long Lake Dam blocked the upper three-quarters of the Spokane in 1915, and the day that the Grand Coulee Dam blocked the Columbia and the rest of the Spokane, in 1939. Both dams went up without fish ladders. Today, it's hard to even visualize how alive the river used to be with fish. "Large schools of salmon swam around in circles, between [Spokane] falls and Bowl and Pitcher. At the confluence of Latah Creek, there were shoals of salmon that just sat there." -- fisheries biologist Dr. Allan Scholz In 1839, The Rev. Elkanah Walker, a missionary, wrote the following about a Spokane Indians fishing camp at Little Falls on the Spokane: "It is not uncommon for them to take 1,000 in a day. It is an interesting sight to see the salmon pass a rapid. The number was so great that there were hundreds constantly out of the water." The famous British botanist David Douglas wrote this in 1826: "The natives constructed a barrier across the Little Spokane (where it enters the Spokane). ... After the traps filled with salmon, the Indians would spear them. 1,700 salmon were taken this day, now two o'clock; how many more may still be in the snare, I do not know." And these two fishing camps, at Little Falls and at the mouth of the Little Spokane, weren't even the biggest of the three main fishing sites on the Spokane River. The premier camp was the big one just below the Spokane Falls, smack in the middle of what is now the city of Spokane. Few, if any, salmon could get above the falls; most of these enormous "hogs" spawned right there. "Large schools of salmon swam around in circles, between the falls and Bowl and Pitcher," said Dr. Allan Scholz, a fisheries biology professor at Eastern Washington University. "At the confluence of Latah Creek, there were shoals of salmon that just sat there." It was as important as any fishing site on the Columbia itself, including the famous fishing spots at Celilo Falls near The Dalles and Kettle Falls, according to Scholz. Debbie Finley, a historian, member of the Colville Confederated Tribes and granddaughter of a Spokane Indian elder, said that anywhere between 200 and 5,000 Indians gathered on the Spokane every year, some of them coming from hundreds of miles away. THE FOUR LOWER SNAKE RIVER DAMS. When Lewis & Clark first stepped foot into the Columbia River watershed, this was the richest salmon fishery on earth. Sixteen million wild salmon yearly pulsed these wild forests and deserts, returning home to natal streams, spawning, and in their death renewing a cycle of life. Where Lewis & Clark canoed free-flowing waters on the Snake River, today the river has been stilled by four federal dams. These four lower Snake River dams form a channel of death for the young salmon. The wild salmon that saved Lewis & Clark now face extinction. Decisions made by the United States during the Bicentennial will determine the fate of Columbia River salmon. [Army Corps of Engineers photos] Lower Granite Dam Little Goose Dam Lower Monumental Dam Ice Harbor Dam "My original people are from the Arrow Lakes in Canada, and we came down in birch-bark canoes, for thousands and thousands of years," said Finley. In fact, when Lewis and Clark came down the Clearwater in 1805, they wondered where all the Nez Perce were. They were told: They're up on the Spokane River, fishing. A salmon chief from the resident Spokane tribe would oversee the fishing and then oversee the distribution of the catch equally among all the diverse bands. "Every single person received equally, no matter their age," said Finley. The Spokane aquifer deserves the credit for this. Cool underground water gushes into the Spokane River at a number of spots, keeping the stream cool in the summer and unfrozen in the winter. According to Scholz, the Spokane Indians depended more heavily on salmon for sustenance than almost any other tribe in the entire Columbia system. An Indian agent in 1866 estimated that salmon made up five-eighths of their total diet. Thousands of enormous chinooks would be spread out to be sun-dried, wind-dried or smoked. The preserved fish lasted through the winter and were traded to other tribes for buffalo hides, shells and obsidian. And when the fishing was done, the games would begin. On the plain where West Riverside Avenue stretches today, the Indians established a horse-racing course. The salmon camps persisted even after the city of Spokane Falls was established in 1881. The salmon camps lasted until the salmon no longer came in 1915. When Lewis and Clark came down the Clearwater in 1805, they wondered where all the Nez Perce were. They were told: They're up on the Spokane River, fishing. The white settlers, too, took advantage of the river's richness. Around the turn of the century, The Spokesman-Review was full of stories of 50-pounders being taken by fishermen. "At one time, Spokane was internationally known for its fishing," said Scholz, upon whose research most of this article is based. "Some of the big hotels were built in part to bring people here for these kind of fishing experiences." Not only was the river famous for its chinook salmon run, but it also had two steelhead runs, a small coho run, and, above the falls, a huge population of cutthroat trout. After hundreds of thousands of years of salmon runs, it took less than a century to kill off the runs entirely. Actually, it took less than two days. When Lt. N. Abercrombie of the U.S. Army went fishing on Havermale Island (Riverfront Park) in 1877, he wrote: "Caught 400 (cutthroat) trout, weighing two to five pounds apiece. As fast as we dropped in a hook baited with a grasshopper, we would catch a big trout. In fact, the greatest part of the work was catching the grasshopper." There's a sound biological explanation for all of this abundance. The Spokane River just plain had more fish-food than most streams, mainly insects. "The invertebrate numbers are astoundingly high, even now," said Scholz. The Spokane aquifer deserves the credit for this. Cool underground water gushes into the Spokane River at a number of spots, keeping the stream cool in the summer and unfrozen in the winter. These are ideal conditions for developing a "really large invertebrate population," said Scholz. Even with those advantages, the Spokane salmon could not survive what happened between about 1870 and 1939. The first blow came with the development of commercial salmon canneries on the lower Columbia. Those canneries went after the biggest chinooks, which happened to be the Spokane River strain. By the late 1880s, the Spokane runs had noticeably shrunk, said Scholz. Then came two much more serious blows. Little Falls Dam, right near one of the main salmon camps, was completed in 1911. It had only a rudimentary fish ladder; there was some dispute over whether fish could negotiate it at all. "From the standpoint of the environment, I'm just aghast." -- Dr. Allan Scholz, fisheries biologist By 1915, it was a moot point. Long Lake Dam was built that year, four miles above Little Falls Dam, without any fish ladder at all. "It was a sad day for the pioneers who had grown to depend on the salmon as one of their staple foods," wrote D.L. McDonald, a settler on the Spokane River, quoted in "The Spokane River: Its Miles and Its History" by John Fahey and Bob Dellwo. "But for the Indians, it was a catastrophe." Salmon were restricted to the lower 28 miles of the river below Little Falls. Then in 1939, the Grand Coulee Dam blocked off the Columbia, which sealed the salmon off from the entire Spokane River. "Of those really large strains that came into this area, it's unlikely that there are any (genetic) remnants left," said Scholz. "River, do you remember how it used to be - the game, the fish, the pure water, the roar of the falls, boats, canoes, fishing platforms? You fed and took care of our people then. For thousands of years we walked your banks and used your waters. You would always answer when our chiefs called to you with their prayer to the river spirit. Sometimes I stand and shout, 'RIVER, DO YOU REMEMBER US?'" -- Chief Alex Sherwood, Spokane Indian Nation Today the Spokane River is mostly a slow-water river. Instead of salmon, it contains carp, bass, bluegills, northern pike, yellow perch and "lots of suckers," said Scholz. The free-flowing sections - from Riverfront State Park upstream to Post Falls - still contain good populations of trout, feeding on those prolific insects. But those 50-plus pound chinooks are visible only to those who use their imagination. "I'm a little wistful that I wasn't here to see it," said Scholz. "And from the standpoint of the environment, I'm just aghast. We've gone from a river system that was very productive to one that is totally regulated. But the biggest thing is the loss of the Indian culture." It's an ache that remains acute. In 1972, Chief Alex Sherwood of the Spokane tribe stood on a restaurant deck, looking out over the falls, and looked back in time. In "The Spokane River: Its Miles and Its History," co-author Bob Dellwo quoted the chief's words that day: "Sometimes even now I find a lonely spot where the river still runs wild. I find myself talking to it. I might ask, 'River, do you remember how it used to be - the game, the fish, the pure water, the roar of the falls, boats, canoes, fishing platforms? You fed and took care of our people then. For thousands of years we walked your banks and used your waters. You would always answer when our chiefs called to you with their prayer to the river spirit.' Sometimes I stand and shout, 'RIVER, DO YOU REMEMBER US?'" The Spokesman-Review, August 21, 1995, Copyright 1995. Reprinted with permission of The Spokesman-Review.

"Capt. Clark" at the National Press Club, March 2000 My name is Captain William Clark. Along with my dear friend here, Captain Meriwether Lewis, I led an expedition that every school child in America knows. I have come today to remind you of our 8,000-mile journey and of the salmon and Indians who saved our lives. Ours was the Corps of Discovery. We carried the hopes of our country scarcely 30 years old. Our journey crossed the continent from the doorstep of Monticello, home of President Thomas Jefferson, through St. Louis, to the mouth of the Columbia River. We rendezvoused in St. Louis on the Mississippi and launched our boats up the Missouri. After nearly 15 months of toilsome days and restless nights, we found the furthermost fountain of the Missouri River. We now stood on a continental divide between two great rivers: the Missouri flowing east, and a new river flowing west. We drank of this cold clean water. This was the water of the Snake River, tributary to the mighty Columbia River. The trail left the rivers and grew treacherous. So steep were the mountains that any man or horse that fell would be dashed to pieces. September snow fell. We were cold, starving, and exhausted. Our expedition and our nation's hopes teetered on the brink of disaster. I left Captain Lewis and the party and went forward in search of food. It was then that I encountered the Nimipoo (Nee-me-poo), the Nez Perce. At this most vulnerable moment they could have ended our lives. The Nez Perce welcomed us. They fed us salmon and camus root. The Indians and salmon saved the Lewis & Clark expedition. Our survival meant the United States, not the British, would claim most of the mighty Columbia River. I have come here today to remind you of all this. For you as a nation are deciding the fate of the salmon that saved the Corps of Discovery. In these waters we saw salmon so thick you could not dip an oar without striking a silvery back. No longer. These free flowing waters we canoed on the Snake River have been stilled by four dams. These four lower Snake River dams are killing the salmon and form a channel of death. As you prepare for the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, the monument you must build is simple: to restore the lower Snake River as a free-flowing river. Remove the dams. Save the salmon. We have a moral duty and legal obligation to do this. Do not shame Capt. Lewis and me with this great injustice of allowing the salmon to go extinct. Honor your treaties promising the salmon will endure. Celebrate the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial by saving the salmon. We were the Corps of Discovery. Capt. Lewis and I challenge you as a nation to be a Corps of Recovery. "Capt. William Clark" speaking at the National Press Club, March 9, 2000, on the occasion of the recognition of the Snake River as the nation's most endangered river by American Rivers. "Capt. Clark" at the DeVoto Grove of Ancient Cedars, Clearwater National Forest, Sept. 2000. Photo: Chase Davis ". . . The Nez Perce Tribe welcomed us. They fed us salmon and camas root. The Indians and salmon saved the Lewis & Clark expedition. Our survival meant the United States, not the British, would claim most of the mighty Columbia River. I have come here today to remind you of all this. For you as a nation are deciding the fate of the salmon that saved the Corps of Discovery. In these waters we saw salmon so thick you could not dip an oar without striking a silvery back. No longer. These free flowing waters we canoed on the Snake River have been stilled by four dams. These four lower Snake River dams are killing the salmon and form a channel of death. As you prepare for the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, the monument you must build is simple: to restore the lower Snake River as a free-flowing river. Remove the dams. Save the salmon. We have a moral duty and legal obligation to do this. Do not shame Capt. Lewis and me with this great injustice of allowing the salmon to go extinct. Honor your treaties promising the salmon will endure. Celebrate the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial by saving the salmon. We were the Corps of Discovery. Capt. Lewis and I challenge you as a nation to be a Corps of Recovery."

Mt. Rainier, clearcuts. Failure of the Lewis and Clark Expedition to find a water route to the Pacific Ocean would eventualy lead to building the transcontinental railroads. Encouraged by land grants awarded to railroads in the 1860s, timber companies started clear-cutting the Northwest in the late 1800s. © Trygve Steen

Explorers Opened Timber Chapter Shots Signaling 1804 Trip Echo In Panel's Action By William Allen, Post-Dispatch Science Writer THE BATTLE OVER America's rain forest is the climax of a chapter in American history that started in the St. Louis area 188 years ago Thursday. On May 14, 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked from a camp near St. Louis with orders from President Thomas Jefferson to explore the territory west of the Mississippi River. They marked the occasion by firing a shot. The events they set in motion prompted new shots in Washington Thursday - exactly 188 years later - in an ongoing environmental battle. The latest skirmish in the battle involved a decision by President George Bush's administration to remove protections for the threatened northern spotted owl. Lewis and Clark described the towering old-growth forests they found in the Pacific Northwest. In reports to Washington, Lewis and Clark described the towering old-growth forests they found in the Pacific Northwest. Encouraged by land grants awarded to railroads in the 1860s, timber companies started clear-cutting the Northwest in the late 1800s. Over the next few decades, Congress and various presidents preserved some forest land by designating national parks and wilderness areas. Timber companies could still cut on vast stretches of public land, including national forests and property managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The Timber Basket About 20 million acres of old-growth forest once stood in Oregon and Washington, forestry experts estimate. Just 2.3 million acres are left, most of it on public land. About 900,000 acres are protected in national parks or wilderness areas. The 1.4 million acres of old growth that are left are subject to logging, primarily on federal lands like national forests and holdings managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. ''This was the nation's timber basket and we cut like there was no tomorrow,'' said Bill Arthur, of the Sierra Club in Seattle. ''Now we're at the end of the timber frontier.'' The U.S. Forest Service has been criticized strongly for allowing timber companies to profit from cutting vast tracts of national forest while taxpayers pay for expensive logging roads. Much of that criticism has come from within the agency's own ranks. The Battle Ensues When the pace of cutting accelerated in the 1980s, environmentalists moved to block what they saw as the final destruction of the Northwestern forests. Their weapon: the northern spotted owl. The owl relies on broad areas of old-growth forest for survival, and scientific studies were showing a dramatic decline in owl populations. In 1987, the environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the owl as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Such a listing would require the agency to develop a ''recovery plan'' for the owl and set up measures to protect ''critical habitat.'' The environmental groups initiated court action that continues today. Judges barred timber sales on many tracts of federal land. After rejecting the owl listing in 1987, the Fish and Wildlife Service finally proclaimed the owl threatened three years later. Last year, the agency proposed setting aside 11.6 million acres of forest to protect the owl but reduced the figure by half a few months later. Environmentalists charged that Bush's administration had bowed to pressure from the powerful timber industry lobby. Enter a Cabinet-level committee dubbed by environmentalists ''the God Squad.'' In January, Bush's administration initiated hearings in Portland before an administrative law judge to assess the need to protect the owl. Based in part on expert testimony at the hearing, the committee voted 5-2 Thursday to override the Endangered Species Act and allow logging on 1,700 acres of Oregon forest that is part of the owl's habitat. The act allows such exceptions to be made. The land on which logging will resume is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The panel earned its nickname because of its power to let a species go extinct. Among the panel's members is Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan, a former congressman from central Illinois. He voted to allow logging to resume. The timber industry and loggers have used the owl to turn the tables on the environmentalists, casting the owl as the needless cause of job loss. The industry also has trained its sights on the Endangered Species Act. Industry officials deny that the owl is becoming extinct and warn that the nation faces an ''endangered species gridlock'' that will tie up economic progress. "The environmentalists have been very good in portraying the idea that the last tree is going to get cut,'' said Chris West, of the Northwest Forestry Association, an industry group in Portland." If we continue to lock up land, we're going to shut more mills, lose more jobs and run out of forest products,'' West said. Countered the Sierra Club's Arthur: ''The change is going to happen. The issue is, are you going to make some conscious decision now or simply going to cut through to the end?'' A spotted owl carcass or two showed up nailed to a tree. Loggers talked of selling canned owl meat to the ''tree-huggers.'' And some environmentalists charged that when a logger looked at a 500-year-old Douglas fir, all he could see was a bunch of two-by-fours waiting to be liberated. Enter The Scientists Before the God Squad was even convened, President Ronald Reagan's administration had asked a panel of experts from several federal agencies to develop a scientifically credible plan to help the owl avoid extinction. Heading the panel was Jack Ward Thomas, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon. In April 1990, the Thomas committee submitted a plan to Congress to set aside large ''habitat conservation areas'' on land managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management over a broader portion of the Pacific Northwest. The plan's adoption would result in the owl population dropping by half, the panel said. "This was the nation's timber basket and we cut like there was no tomorrow. Now we're at the end of the timber frontier." The scientists emphasized that the entire forest ecosystem - not just the owl - was at stake. Industry complained that the plan would take too much land from logging. Environmentalists complained that it would take too little. Rep. Harold Volkmer, D-Hannibal, ordered another study. Volkmer heads a pivotal House subcommittee on farms and forests. A group of leading forestry scientists known as the ''Gang of Four'' convened. The panel included Thomas, Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington, K. Norman Johnson of Oregon State University and John Gordon of Yale University. The Portland press corps gave the group its name because of its independence from any agency. The Gang of Four, with help from several specialists, gathered all available scientific data and listed options that balanced timber harvest levels against protection of owls and endangered fish. They made no single recommendation. ''The Thomas report injected scientific credibility into the debate,'' Johnson said. ''The Gang of Four report analyzes the data and passes the choices to Congress of the acceptable level of risk'' for the owl and other species. Said Volkmer: ''We have used that scientific basis for the first time in writing legislation that affects our national forests. In doing so, we looked at the ecology of the national forest. That's quite a difference from the way we've approached this in the past.'' On a 7-6 vote last week, Volkmer's subcommittee sent to the full Agriculture Committee a bill that used the report as a basis to balance timber production with protection of owls, salmon and other animals. Volkmer's bill as well as one now moving through the House Interior Committee could form the basis for a new law that would pre-empt many of the logging decisions made by the administration and the courts. Volkmer has won praise from scientists and environmentalists for bringing a scientific foundation to Northwestern forest legislation. As the Gang of Four noted in its report: ''Science has done what it can. The process of democracy must go forward from here.'' How America's rain forest will be managed is now in the hands of Congress. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 15, 1992. Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, copyright 2002. (http://home.post-dispatch.com).

Clearcut controversy Forest Service questions timing of Plum Creek's pine forest harvest along Lewis and Clark Trail By Sherry Devlin of the Missoulian LOLO PASS - Knowing that the U.S. Forest Service wanted to buy the land and protect its historic value, Plum Creek Timber Co. clearcut a lodgepole pine forest sheltering the Lewis and Clark Trail near Lolo Pass. Then, with the bicentennial of the historic expedition approaching and amid predictions that millions of tourists would follow the explorers' route, Plum Creek said "no" to the Forest Service's purchase offer and instead sold the government an easement allowing public access to the trail. Alternately called the Lolo Trail, the Nez Perce Trail and the Lewis and Clark Trail, the 120-mile route from Lolo, Mont., to Weippe, Idaho, is a priceless historic artifact. Now some say the logging stripped the land of its historic setting at the very moment the national spotlight was set to shine on the trail that gave Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passage through the Bitterroot Mountains in 1805 and 1806 - as it had the Nez Perce and Salish Indians for centuries before. "It is almost inconceivable that Plum Creek could have undertaken this project knowing the bicentennial was ahead," said Gene Thompson, a forestry technician who oversees trail maintenance for the Lolo National Forest. "That's what saddens me. This is the first time the trail has had so much attention focused on it. "By all indications, a lot of people will come over this trail in the next few years. I just wish they could have seen this section as it appeared 18 months ago. This was a place where you could really understand the trials of the Native Americans and the trials of Lewis and Clark when they encountered these mountains." "The historic tread remains, but the integrity of the setting has been lost," said Lolo National Forest archaeologist Milo McLeod. "It is unfortunate that Plum Creek could not have been more sensitive to the value of the historic setting." In September of 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition nearly met its end on the Lolo Trail, so scarce was the game and so early the snowfall. And in the summer of 1877, 750 Nez Perce Indians tried to escape pursuing soldiers by crossing the trail into Montana. An adjoining, uncut section of national forest land provides the picture of what Plum Creek's land looked like 18 months ago, when a crew of Nez Perce and Salish teen-agers cleared the Lolo Trail from Lee Creek campground to Packer Meadows, then rode the trail on horseback. There was no break in tree cover from the national forest to the industrial forest in July 1999. For 2.5 miles, the trail ran through an intact forest, uncut by public or private foresters, left to grow for the 90 years since the Bitterroot Mountains burned in the fires of 1910. It was, Thompson said, the largest piece of intact forest on the Lolo Trail in Montana. Now the edge of the national forest is marked by a line of 90-year-old lodgepole pines, their sides painted red to show the change in ownership. Cross into the national forest and the scene is dark, cool and green. Turn around and traverse the adjoining Plum Creek section and the mountainside is open; a handful of spindly lodgepoles remains; the growth is at ground level, where foresters have planted a new forest. Few Forest Service or Plum Creek employees have seen the Lee Creek clearcut. In fact, the Plum Creek land-use manager who lauded the easement during a ceremony in Packer Meadows last month conceded Friday that he has not seen the site. "My company and our predecessors have managed this area for many decades as part of our working forest," Jerry Sorensen said at the July 25 celebration. "And for as long a time, we have recognized the special importance of this area and have protected the integrity and the character of the Lolo Trail." On Friday, Sorensen said the federal government "bought an easement, not the land" in Lee Creek. Plum Creek never hid the fact that the timber would be actively managed, he said. "Our foresters felt this was the best way to manage that ground for the long term, not just for the two years of the Lewis and Clark celebration," said Plum Creek spokeswoman Kris Russell. "We are looking at the forest over decades, not over a couple of years." The open hillside below Wagon Mountain has not lost its forest, Russell insisted. "This is a forest. It is just a very, very young forest. A lot of people would refer to the forest next door as a biological desert, or darn close to it. But now you're getting into a huge philosophical discussion. Is a forest something that has trees on it or is a forest a place where trees are growing?" "It is almost inconceivable that Plum Creek could have undertaken this project knowing the bicentennial was ahead." "I don't think a doghair lodgepole stand is a whole lot better looking than a clearcut," she said. Lolo National Forest supervisor Debbie Austin said she was not surprised when her staff reported that the land had been logged during the two years she was negotiating the easement with Plum Creek. "There were some expectations that some people had, and those people were quite surprised when this happened," she said. "I was not." "Plum Creek agreed to sell portions of land containing the Lolo Trail, but they were not willing to sell Section 1," Austin said. "They were willing to give us public access by way of an easement, and that was what we purchased. I always knew the management would be different in Section 1. All we acquired was a 15-foot trail easement." During negotiations, Austin said she asked Plum Creek foresters if they could take a "lighter touch" in managing the forest alongside the historic trail. "But they told me they would be managing this land, that they wanted to manage the trees. At that point in the negotiations, my choice was to protect the trail tread and public access, or to walk away. "I felt the trail was more important than walking away." "This is the way I chose to look at it," Austin said. "It was really important to protect the trail and to provide access for the public in perpetuity. That was the most important thing. It was private land, and we couldn't go in and take somebody's private land away from them." The Forest Service paid $4,600 for trail easements on two sections of Plum Creek land, one of which was the recently clearcut Section 1. Russell said her company does not sell timberland "that we think we can manage well for long-term forestry." Section 1 was good, productive timberland, she said. "The Forest Service knows that giving them an easement doesn't mean we will stop managing the forest the way we think we should manage a forest," Russell said. "We are not the kind of company that hides its work. We think we do a good job of managing the forest and don't try to hide that by not doing it." A clearcut was the right forestry prescription for the lodgepole stand in Lee Creek, Russell said. "We did what was right for the ground. I do not feel it diminishes the trail or its importance or the easement or its importance. The easement is in perpetuity, as is the forest." "The reason it was clearcut was because it was lodgepole pine," she said. "There is not a whole heck of a lot else that you can do with that sort of stand. If you do a selective harvest, all the trees you left are going to fall down. If you are ever going to do anything with it, you have to clearcut it." "This was a place where you could really understand the trials of the Native Americans and the trials of Lewis and Clark when they encountered these mountains." -- Gene Thompson, Lolo National Forest Lodgepole forests like those atop Lolo Pass "grew up out of a fire ecology where they burned to the ground," Russell said. A clearcut is how a forester mimics nature's stand-replacing fires. "In lodgepole, you don't have a forestry option," she said. "It wouldn't do any good to leave a buffer along the trail. All the trees would blow over. The same would be true if we left a few more trees per acre. From our foresters' perspective, they are trying to grow a forest." Plum Creek abided by all good-forestry precepts and best-management practices in logging the historic trail, Russell said. The riparian area at the base of the hillside was not logged. There, the Lolo Trail runs through a lush forest and hops a little creek. Forest Service officials did not disagree with Russell's assessment. "This is private land," Thompson said. "What was done here was within the legal rights and responsibilities of the landowner. This landscape abides by best management practices for forestry in the state of Montana." The public-access easement puts no restrictions on Plum Creek's management of the land. If logging disrupts access, the company must provide an alternate route. If the trail is damaged by the company's management, it must be restored. But for Thompson, who - with archaeologist McLeod - visited the site last week at the Missoulian's request, the question is not one of laws broken or responsibilities shirked, but one of timing. For McLeod, it is one of preserving the integrity of a trail that has national significance. "Knowing that this was the Lolo Trail, they could have been more sensitive," McLeod said. "They could have left a corridor." Thompson and McLeod had hoped the Forest Service would be able to buy Section 1, as it did another 1,248 acres owned by Plum Creek on steeper, less profitable ground nearby. In the same transaction that provided the easement across the Lee Creek clearcut, the federal government paid $1.6 million for other sections of Plum Creek land through which the historic trail passes. That now-public acreage will be managed so visitors see no signs of modern management, Austin said. But Plum Creek will determine how the private timberland is managed. The Lolo Creek drainage has been logged since the 1920s, first by industrial foresters, then by the Forest Service, McLeod said. Much of the timberland is in a checkboard ownership pattern - one section of Plum Creek, one section of national forest, one more section of Plum Creek. "The intermix of management has always been a challenge," McLeod said, "particularly since the Lolo Trail was named a National Historic Landmark, and then was placed on the National Historic Register. This is a place significant to our nation's history, but it is also an industrial forest." McLeod wrote his master's thesis on the Lolo Trail and pinpointed its location over the past two decades. Alternately called the Lolo Trail, the Nez Perce Trail and the Lewis and Clark Trail, the 120-mile route from Lolo, Mont., to Weippe, Idaho, is a priceless historic artifact, he said. And while Russell said Plum Creek foresters were not certain of the trail's location, McLeod said there is no doubt - and has not been any doubt for several years. He flagged the trail three years ago, before the forest was logged. Thompson came along with another set of markers two years ago; he, too, was there before Plum Creek logged the land. "We know this trail and its history and its use and its significance," McLeod said. For hundreds of years, maybe longer, Salish Indians traveled west over the trail to dig camas roots at Lolo Pass and to fish for salmon and steelhead on the Clearwater and Snake rivers. From the plateaus of central Idaho came the Nez Perce people, headed east onto the plains to hunt buffalo. In September of 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition nearly met its end on the Lolo Trail, so scarce was the game and so early the snowfall. And in the summer of 1877, 750 Nez Perce Indians tried to escape pursuing soldiers by crossing the trail into Montana. They were sick, hungry and frightened; most died in the flight, or at the Big Hole or Bears Paw battlefields. McLeod said the Nez Perce's final crossing left the path so deeply worn that he could find the tread more than 100 years later. The trail and the land it crosses are not pristine, he said. They have been used by humans for centuries. But the Forest Service has protected the path and its immediate surroundings in recent decades, deferring to the land's historic value, McLeod said. Russell, however, pointed to other places where her company did no logging and eventually sold the land to the public, including the Glade Creek campsite on the Idaho side of Lolo Pass. "There are special places like Glade Creek," she said, "where we approached our management completely differently." And Plum Creek is negotiating the possible sale of (or easements on) other tracts through which the Lolo Trail passes in Idaho, some of the wildest remaining country through which the Lewis and Clark expedition passed. Sometimes, commercial timberland is logged before it is sold to reduce the asking price, said Sorensen, the company's land-use manager. Sometimes, it is logged before an easement is granted because the work will be more difficult afterwards. Could the Forest Service insist that the land not be touched during the course of negotiations? "Yes," said Austin, the Lolo forest supervisor. But that kind of demand could be a deal-breaker. "It depends on the values and the reasons why we want to acquire a piece of property," Austin said. "If those values are related to having a bunch of trees on the land, then we need to say we want the trees - and we have to pay for them." In the case of the land in Lee Creek, Austin said, "I didn't feel the value was the trees. I felt the value to the public was the access. Besides, access was the only choice we were given." The Forest Service talked about Lolo Trail easements for more than 10 years with both Plum Creek and Champion International Corp. - before Champion sold its Montana timberland to Plum Creek, Austin said. Only in the past two years, after she became forest supervisor and money was available to buy some land, did the negotiations get serious. "It was a long, long negotiation to get to the point where Plum Creek agreed to sell us anything," she said. "On the last two sections - Sections 1 and 25 - they said, 'We cannot go any further, but we will sell you an easement.'" "It's a fact," said Thompson, the forestry technician. "It's their land and their timetable. Ultimately, it has to come down to expectations, and mine were maybe less realistic than others." Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com. Missoulian, August 19, 2001, Reprinted with permission of the Missoulian.

Plum Creek clearcutting near Lolo Pass, 1989. Photo: © John Osborn

Clearcuts, logging roads, and landslides, Clearwater National Forest. Photo: © Bill Haskins Clearwater National Forest: A National Treasure in Peril When Lewis & Clark explored the west, they did not find a single clearcut or logging road. In the last 200 years the forests of the Northern Rockies, Cascades, and coastal ranges have been heavily clearcut, and bulldozed with hundreds of thousands of miles of logging roads. Today, between Monticello and Astoria, the last remaining wilderness section of the trail is in Idaho: the Clearwater National Forest. Here it is possible to walk in the footsteps of the Corps of Discovery, and see the sweep of a wilderness landscape unmarred by logging roads and clearcuts. With 16 inventoried roadless areas totaling close to one million acres, northern Idaho's Clearwater National Forest retains much of the same wild character as when Lewis & Clark first traversed the area 200 years ago. The Clearwater's many low-elevation roadless areas and old growth forests are a rarity even in America's National Forest System. Smoking Cairn, Clearwater National Forest. Between Monticello and Fort Clatsop there are few places that are as wild today as they were at the time of Lewis & Clark. Here at Smoking Cairn, the view in nearly all directions is of wild country: neither clearcuts nor logging roads. Photo: © Chase Davis The Clearwater is home to many pristine rivers and streams. As its name implies, this national forest is world-renowned for blue ribbon fisheries, kayaking, and rafting. Sections of the Lochsa and North Fork rivers remain wild drainages, contributing to exceptional water quality. Because of the forest's thin fragile soils, logging and roadbuilding have threatened several rivers, including the Palouse and Potlatch. The Clearwater's rivers and streams provide important spawning habitat for westslope cutthroat, bull trout, steelhead, and chinook salmon. All four have either been listed as threatened, endangered or are being petitioned for listing. Past logging and road construction have caused landslides which decimated fish populations in some drainages. The Clearwater's wildlands provide important habitat for gray wolf, bald eagle, lynx, and possibly grizzly bear. Recovery plans for grizzlies in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness have been proposed Logging and roadbuilding have impaired water quality and fisheries on more than a third of this national forest. On the eve of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, the U.S. Forest Service plans to log thousands of acres of the Clearwater National Forest, further despoiling this national treasure. Tourists exploring the lands of Lewis & Clark will be joined by logging trucks driving the winding, river canyon Highway 12. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: FRIENDS OF THE CLEARWATER www.wildrockies.org/foc 208.882-9755 PO Box 9241 Moscow, ID 83843 Next Section Return To Lewis & Clark Home Page

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