About noon, on this rainy early Autumn day the Corps of Discovery hove into sight of St. Louis, their final destination. The citizens of that growing village gathered on the bank just down from Roy’s mill to enthusiastically receive this band of hardy adventurers who had long been given up for dead. As they approached, the Captains had three volleys fired as a salute to the warm welcome. By now the men of the Corps were a rough and disreputable looking lot and were later described as 'Robinson Crusoes' as they pulled to shore. Most were wearing little but buckskins though a few had traded for hats and cloth shirts during the previous few days with traders they met who were going up river. What must have been the thoughts going through their minds as they made their last paddle or oar stroke and the bow bumped to shore for the last time? Most were probably ecstatic, proud and relieved. In the bow of the white pirogue William Clark waves his battered round hat as Meriwether Lewis releases his grip on his eager Newfoundland, Seaman. Both men wear the vestiges of their rank. York, William Clark’s slave, probably mingled fear and resignation with the excitement of his return. Would he continue to enjoy the freedoms he’d earned on the trek or would life return to as before? His uncertainty is reflected in his gaze and pose. Perhaps looking back out onto the great-plains or mountains where even a black man could be free. Sheheke, the great Mandan chief and guest of Lewis and Clark points out something of interest to his astonished wife. Surely Lewis and Clark saw this as the beginning of another phase of their expedition. It was now time to collect their thoughts and begin to share and explain the knowledge and material culture collected along the way. In many ways this new phase proved to be the most difficult and least successful part of their endeavor All of them recognized that what they had achieved was significant but few could probably guess that their efforts would become such an important symbol of the opening of the great American West.
