Pauline Nevins

I returned recently from a brief holiday. My first visit to Washington state. Our daughter, Tina, lured us there. She and her husband have become exuberant campers since they purchased an ultra-light Alto trailer that didn’t require her dad’s F350 truck to tow.

Tina first visited the Washington campsite a few years ago and was so enchanted with the area she pledged to return and drag her parents with her.

“It’s on the Washington coast at the mouth of the Colombia River,” she explained. “You’ll love it. Don’t let the name put you off.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “Cape Disappointment?”

Blame the name on Captain John Meares, an English fur trader who was disappointed he hadn’t found the Columbia River.

As surprised as I was by the campsite name, I was more surprised by the name of the town where she suggested we stay. These days, my idea of camping is to flop into a folding chair and bolt back to the comfort of a hotel when the bugs start biting.

“The town’s called Ilwaco – pronounced ‘ill wacko,’ ” Tina said. “We checked the pronunciation with the locals so we wouldn’t insult them.”

So we have Cape Disappointment close to Ilwaco.

“Wonder how Ilwaco got its name?” I asked my husband, Jim. I researched and reported to him Chief Comcomly, of the Chinook Tribe, named the town for his son-in-law. “His name,” I said, as seriously as I could, “was Elwahko Jim.”

“Say no more,” as they say in England.

“Mother,” my daughter began one morning as I sat, bottomed out, in her favorite gravity campsite chair, “why don’t you join us on a hike this morning?”

“Us” included two grandchildren under 10 and her son-in-law, who recently placed in a Texas Ironman competition.

“It’s a short trail that leads up to The Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center with a terrific view of the Pacific Ocean,” my daughter said.

“Leads UP to,” I whispered to myself. At home, I walk every day, but the hikes are rarely steep. But my daughter didn’t say steep, did she? She should have. The Ironman, the two iron boys and my daughter skipped merrily up the vertical trail. I plastered on a smile that gradually morphed into a grimace.

“I have to stop for a minute,” I wheezed at my daughter’s back, three minutes up the trail.

“Sorry mom,” she said, “Let me help.”

Tossing pride aside, I gripped her hand. She hauled me up, pointing out rocks and roots she knew upended me on less strenuous walks back home.

The effort was worth it. I knew very little about the Corps of Discovery Expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, other than a group travelled an unchartered course from America’s east to the west coast.

I wandered through the Interpretative Center reading the large wall panels and admiring the photographs and paintings that chronicled the group’s trail. What a journey. For two years, beginning in 1804, 33 explorers travelled more than 8,000 miles, mostly by boat, often on foot and occasionally on horses supplied by Native Americans. I was pleased the group included a Shoshone Native American woman, Sacagawea, and York, a Black man – albeit a slave.

Seventeen-year-old Sacagawea, in particular, contributed to the success of the mission. She assisted her French-Canadian husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, the group’s interpreter – her infant son, Jean Baptiste, secured to her back. Sacagawea, Captain Clark wrote, “… reconciles all the Indians to our friendly intentions. A woman with a party of men is a token of peace.”

When she was 12 years old, the Hidatsa, an enemy tribe, kidnapped Sacagawea. During the expedition, she discovered something. Upon meeting with the Shoshone, she realized the Tribe’s chief, Cameahwait, was her long-lost brother. She wept with joy.

As awed as I was by the bravery of the explorers, I was mindful that many American Indians know the assistance their ancestors provided the expedition ensured its success, which then opened the west, ultimately to the detriment of America’s indigenous people.

The Corps of Discovery Expedition returned home in 1806. President Thomas Jefferson, who initiated the expedition, wrote of his “unspeakable joy” upon hearing from Captain Lewis about the group’s safe return. Except for one man, who died from a burst appendix, all returned home having survived brutal weather, illness and accidents – including Captain Lewis getting shot in the buttocks by one of his own men. And, in their spare time, they documented 178 previously unknown species of plants and 122 new animals.

The president’s one disappointment may have been that the list of new animals did not include the wooly mammoth he believed still roamed America’s northwest.