Lewis & Clark
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For 13 summers, archaeologist Ken Karsmizki, of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT has been leading a dig at a remote spot along the Missouri River. He's found the first confirmed exact location of a campsite made by the Lewis & Clark Expedition. He also found that, like the members of the Expedition, he and his team must be prepared for a life exposed to the elements. Producer Barrett Golding prepared this report, tape courtesy of Montana State University:

Ken: "Based on the journals of Lewis and Clark, we're at a campsite that they established on the 16th of June 1805. As a crow flies, about 10 miles away from Great Falls, MT. And knowing that this rock here, and this one - I mean, I'm kneeling down here at the site of a campfire that they note.

In all we have over 9,000 pieces of bone that we've collected. We've found a gun flint. We found an iron push pin. Imagine yourself being Clark, and we can see it in the journals, what he's doing is completing the maps of the Missouri River. He's sitting out here, he's totally exposed to the wind. He just puts a push pin in each corner of that paper and it holds it down.

When you're out here and we experience it as an archaeological team, if it rains, you're wet. You know, if the bugs bite, well, you've got welts all over you. If it hails, you've got bruises. If it's 100 degrees, you're hot. That's the same way with them and they were planning for it. They've got a field kitchen, they've got portable desks, they've got push pins to keep their paper down. So, everything they think about and they allow for that. It's an incredible journey. Most people say it's the great American odyssey.

This is a group of people who are out in the most forbidden country that they can imagine at their time with virtually no knowledge. When Neil Armstrong went to the moon, we knew more about the moon, then that Lewis and Clark knew about the west. Barrett Golding is an independent producer from Bozeman, MT. Thanks to Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive.