Lewis&Clark team touches lots of kids

The Lewis and Clark reenacters started their winter break last month. During their trek this year up the Missouri River they met lots of kids…and a few protestors.

The reenacters are following the route and pace of the original Lewis and Clark team in 1804. That meant, the 2004 travelers also got to Fort Mandan, S.D., early in November.

Two hundred years ago, the explorers spent over five months at Fort Mandan, waiting for the winter weather to break.

But, the current team decided to come home for the holidays. They're going to wait out the winter in their own homes. Also, they'll be able to give their boats some much-needed repair in the same place they were originally built.

(For more about the boats and their repair, click here.)

One constant this year about the trip up the Missouri were the kids….thousands of them.

They ranged from an encampment of thousands of Boy Scouts in mid-Missouri to meeting modern-day Indian kids at schools in Nebraska and the Dakotas.

Jim Sturm is the Journey of Discovery's technology coordinator. Before taking a leave to make the journey, he taught math and science at Wydown Middle School in Clayton.

On the reenactment, his job is to film the journey and put live programs on the Internet.

He said the reenacters met with Indian kids at public schools on two reservations. There was also a program at a Catholic school for Indians in Chamberlain, S.D.

At the Omaha Indian reservation at Macy, Neb., the reenacters heard various presentations by different classes. One class told of the different clans.

Another class demonstrated how Indian kids played a "hand game." That's a game involving feathers and beans.

From another class, the L&C team received homemade "friendship sticks." To make them, Indians take a wooden stick and wrap it with different colored string or yarn.

The legend says, after kids exchange "friendship sticks," they will remain friends for life.

The next reservation stop was near Yankton, S.D. They went to the Marty High and Middle School for Sioux Indians.

Demonstrations included Sioux Indian drumming and dancing. Also, a videoconference was held between Indian kids and students at St. Clements Catholic School in St. Louis.

Sturm said, "This was an exchange between two different cultures." He said the Indians' hesitancy to speak seemed to other students that they didn't want to talk with them.

But, he said that wasn't the case. "They just tend to be very quiet," he said.

At Chamberlain, S.D., the L&C reenacters met kids at St. Joseph Catholic School. These kids were from the Lakota Indian nation.

The kids there gave a show that demonstrated the role of the buffalo in Indian life. Kids from other places got to ask lots of questions about buffalo, Sturm said.

Later, near Pierre, S.D., the reenacters saw a herd of 2,500 buffalo on the Triple-U Ranch. This area was used in filming Kevin Costner's movie, "Dancing with Wolves.".

Sturm said the reenacters met "thousands of kids" along their travel route.

One unusual gathering was in mid-Missouri. The reenacters stopped at a tent encampment by several thousand Boy Scouts. One Scout activity there involved qualifying for a Lewis and Clark merit badge.

One encounter along the trail involved a group of adult Indian protestors. They were urging the explorers to turn around and go back to St. Louis.

Sturm said the protestors were "very upset with us." He said they looked upon the original Lewis and Clark trip "as the start of the end of the Indian culture."

He added that from an Indian point of view they were right.

Exploration by Lewis and Clark opened up a big part of the U.S. to a flood of white immigration. That led to native Americans being confined to reservations.

Sturm said issues raised by protestors "will be explored in future video-conference classes."

The "winter break" began when the reenacters arrived at Fort Mandan on Nov. 4.

The reenacters' Journey of Discovery will resume on April 7, 2005. The crew will arrive at Fort Clapsop in Oregon in November. That site is located near the Pacific Ocean.

The return trip to St. Louis will be completed on Sept. 23, 2006.

(Editor's note: To review all the Lewis and Clark activities, there are two neat websites. One is www.lewisandclark.net. The other is www.ali.apple.com/lewisandclark.)