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Through Lewis and Clark’s journals and documents, a rare portrait of the then-untamed American West emerges. Herds of bison thunder across the Great Plains as flocks of migrating birds darken the sky. Steep gorges give way to intoxicating vistas, where plants and animals thrive in abundance.
Through them, we discover the mighty force of the Missouri River, abundant prairies, hauntingly beautiful sagebrush grasslands, mountains that soar to immense heights and impenetrable — globally rare — coastal temperate rainforests with thick, 300-year-old trees. Their words transport us through time and place to Iowa’s Loess Hills, the Glaciated Plains of Montana, and other enchanting places along the trail.
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In Their Own Words... |
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“We were now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trod. The good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine."
~ Lewis wrote from Fort Mandan, N.D. as the Corps prepared to once-again head westward | | Walking in their footsteps allows us to better understand these lands today, 200 years later. As European settlers moved west, lands were plowed, and cities sprang up. The landscape was forever changed.
Still, there are places where the plants and animals Lewis and Clark discovered thrive, where rare, open vistas can be savored. It is in these last great places, and many more throughout the American West, that the Conservancy is working to preserve and protect.
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