opening a Highway to the Pacific 59
of the western ocean—" the object of our labours, the reward of all our anxieties."
Establish winter quarters; Fort Clatsop. The purpose of the expedition had been achieved. A highway across the continent of North America was now an established fact, and all that remained to be done was to carry back the news of the great discovery. Jefferson had instructed Lewis to find, if possible, a ship on the Pacific by which some or all of the party might return to the United States with the journals of the expedition. But, while traders sometimes entered the Columbia, as the natives testified, no vessel appeared during the winter of 1 805-1 806. All that could be done was to spend the rainy season on the Oregon coast, and take up the return march overland in the spring. At a place three miles above the mouth of the Netal (now called Lewis and Clark River), on the " first point of high land on its western bank," the explorers erected a low-roofed log building to which, in honour of the neighbouring tribe of Indians, they gave the name of Fort Clatsop.^ The location was by no
1 The Netal enters Meriwether's, now called Young's, Bay. The fort was located two hundred yards from the bank of the river. It was in the form of a square, 50x50 feet. Two cabins, one of three, the other of four, rooms, occupied two sides. Between them was the parade ground, the ends of which were closed by means of posts or palisades. In the June (1904) number of Scribne/s Magazine, Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites publishes for the first time the ground plan of Fort Clatsop. The drawing was found by him while searching among Clark's papers, "traced upon the rough elk-skin cover of his field book."
