October 16 - 18: Celebrating Sacajawea

Over the next couple of days, I'm dedicating some blog posts to Sacajawea an' the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

On September 29th, Mom, Grandma, and Auntie Donna visited a park in Kennewick/Pasco/Richland, Washington called "Sacajawea Park." They were having a celebration of the expedition of the early nineteenth century with costumed "historical figures," native tools and ephemera, and some period foods (although Mom is kinda skeptical about the funnelcake's place in history) prepared by the boy scout an' cub scouts.



As you can see from the historical marker shown in the photo above, Lewis and Clark's party camped in the area that became the Sacajawea Park from October 16th through 18th in 1805. The little spit of land is bordered by the Snake and Columbia Rivers.



The park was FORMALLY dedicated to the people of the Tri-Cities area in 1927 by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Carstens. Prior to 1870, a women's organization called the Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington had set aside the acreage as a memorial.

When the park was dedicated eighty years ago, the trees were tiny and didn't provide much shade. Now, the trees are ginormous and cast their shade over much of the grassy areas of the park. There are areas with docks for mooring recreational boats, and while Mom was watching, a tugboat moved swiftly past pushing a large barge. She wasn't aware of how crucial that waterway is to commerce in the Pacific Northwest.

In the park, there was a museum with some cool artifacts and stuff to read. Check out everything about that historical event and how the Lewis and Clark Expedition was impacted by the introduction of salmon, the influence of the local tribes, and the conditions brought about by the Columbia River Gorge region.