December 31 2022

Montana: Backtracking Lewis and Clark

, 2022-12-30 14:36:59,

A telegram passes through it: “Mighty Missouri” In central Montana, near the small Rocky Mountains, Merryweather Lewis mistook for a large. The Lewis and Clark Expedition used the Missouri River as a highway through the West, until then undiscovered by white Americans. The river has seldom been so calm or so navigable. The power line crossing the river is an apt symbol of the massive changes that have crossed path in the past 200 years. (© FlaglerLive)

Skip the intro and take me straight to today’s premium.

Introduction to American Impressions: You are the luckiest reporter on the planet. I suggested to the editors at the Lakeland Ledger that they send me across the country and write an article about each of the 50 states. They went for it, handing me two credit cards, a camera and a car of my choice—a Chevy Venture that provided it with a library and bed.

I spent 15 months alone on the road, covering 60,000 miles and four times as many words. The score anchored a weekly segment throughout 1999, beginning with the Millennium. What You’ll Read Here Between Christmas and New Year’s, when FlaglerLive traditionally declines to wake you up with tough news (and He haunts you instead with pleas for our support), are the first few parts of that journey. While my reports at the time form the basis of the work, most of what you will read has not been previously published. The rest has been extensively reworked and updated.