April/May 2003 | Volume 54, Issue 2 A present-day adventurer
canoes the Upper Missouri to find that time and fortune have
erased signs of its later history, restoring the wilderness the
Corps of Discovery penetrated nearly 200 years ago The Corps of
Discovery that Meriwether Lewis assembled in 1803 and 1804 did
eventually find the Missouri’s source in south western Montana.
But the headwaters rose several mountain ranges east of the
Continental Divide, dashing hopes of a Northwest Passage. From a
geopolitical standpoint, though, the expedition achieved
something far more important: It sparked the expansion that
would underpin American claims to the present-day northwestern
United States. After Lewis and Clark visited it, the Upper
Missouri became a major westward thoroughfare for fur traders,
steamboaters, gold seekers, stockmen, and homesteaders. As they
streamed in, they displaced the native peoples. Most famously,
the Nez Perces beat their final, heartbreaking retreat through
the Missouri Breaks while flee