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January 2011
To get around the Merrimack River Valley, a car is essential; most of the places mentioned are near interstate highways. First get in touch with the Merrimack River Watershed Council, 181 Canal Street, P.O. Box 1377, Lawrence, MA 01842 (978-681-5777; www.merrimack.org ). The friendly volunteers can help you plan routes and may even invite you to join them on visits.
In the spring of 1990, I traveled up the Columbia River aboard a small vessel named Sea Lion on a trip which the cruise company called “In the Wake of Lewis and Clark.” Along the way, probably in a local museum, I noticed a sign bearing a logo featuring the explorers. It marked the hundredth anniversary, in 1904, of their great adventure. I bet people are starting to work on the 200th, I thought at the time. It seemed very near and yet very far away.
There are direct flights from a number of American cities, and lately Lufthansa has had some of the best prices. Once you’re in Berlin, the subways (U-Bahns) and surface commuter trains (S-Bahns) are excellent. The taxis are expensive. (Dubious local folklore, incidentally, has it that many of the drivers are former agents of the East German secret police.) Make sure to carry a map, since Berlin has a lot of tiny streets and the long ones tend to change every few blocks. The best maps are by Falk, the top of the line being the vast and ingeniously folded Berlin Grossraum Megaplan. To be sure of a reservation, book your hotel room at least a month in advance.
Many German pay phones take prepaid phone cards rather than coins, and the cards are worth buying at post offices and shops. Berlin is well supplied with ATMs that dispense euros and with Internet cafés. Petty crime is about as common as in a typical major American city; violent crime is less so.
Contact Travel Montana at visitmt.com or call at 800-VISITMT for details about exploring the state, including its many historic sites. Specifics on the Lewis and Clark Trail can be found at www.lewisandclark.state.mt.us/ .
Historic Fort Benton, at river-mile zero of the 149-mile Wild and Scenic Upper Missouri River holds pride of place as “Montana’s Birthplace.” From June to September the tiny town also serves as the staging area for many Missouri Breaks trips and as home base for a slew of outfitters. Most river travelers arrive directly from the Great Falls airport, an hour’s drive away. But if time allows, a stop at Great Falls’s Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center, in a spectacular riverside setting, offers a worthwhile overview of the expedition (406-727-8733; www.fs.fed.us/rl/lewisclark/lcic.htm ).
In April 1805 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark sent a shipment to Thomas Jefferson from the wilds of what is now North Dakota. The crates included a 45,000-word report, plant and animal specimens, and gifts the expedition had received from the Mandan and Hidatsa people, with whom the captains had spent the winter.
The delighted President used many of the items as showpieces in a personal museum he created in the entrance hall of his home at Monticello. In 1809 he wrote to Clark, “Your donations & Governor Lewis’s have given to my collection of Indian curiosities an importance much beyond what I had ever counted on.” Now, for the kickoff of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, Monticello has re-created Jefferson’s “Indian Hall” as it might have looked in his time. The exhibit “Framing the West at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson and the Lewis and Clark Expedition” continues throughout this year.