By Topic: TRAVEL

Monday, June 08, 2009

Our Lady of Navigation

I gave thanks to “Our Lady of Navigation” many times while traveling in the Baltimore-Washington DC area on my Death of Meriwether Lewis book tour in June, 2009. I decided to try using the VZ Navigator feature on my new Verizon cell phone rather than rent a gps navigation unit with the rental car. The car rental navigation unit was $15 a day; the VZ Navigator optional feature for the cell phone was only $2.99 a day or $9.99 a month.
As the author of Lewis and Clark Road Trips, I have travelled over 8,000 miles using car GPS units. We have used them since the earliest models because our son and daughter-in-law work for Navteq, the world,s leading digital map maker, which was acquired by Nokia in 2007. Navteq supplies the VZ Navigator map database and route guidance.

For years I have yearned to have a “qwerty” keyboard to enter street addresses instead of the baffling virtual keyboards, and that is what sold me on the Verizon cell phone with its real keyboard. But I wondered about its small screen size, and where to put it. The young man who sold me the phone, an LG enV2 model, advised me to get ear buds so that the voice guidance of “the Lady” could be heard above traffic noise. I got the ear buds, plus a universal headphone adapter (2.5 mm to 3.5mm) for the smaller size jack hole of the cell phone. I also got a car charger cord.
I was very impressed by the quickness of response from the Lady, and the quality of route information. She was patient with me when I disregarded her instructions. I felt like we were cooperating together in getting me safely and sanely to my destinations, which were quite varied. I put the cell phone on the passenger seat, and would glance down occasionally to see how many miles before the next maneuver. The screen would count down the miles, and I knew that she would alert me with voice instructions at 0.3 miles on city streets, and 0.7 miles on highways as to upcoming lane changes and turns.
Driving back to my motel 30 miles from D.C. at night, in torrential rains, really tested my reliance on the Lady and I vowed that when I got home I would blog about it. After a decade of using gps navigation units, I would recommend this system as the best and most convenient that I have used.—Kira Gale
http://www.lewisandclarkroadtrips.com and http://www.deathofmeriwetherlewis.com

Posted by Kira Gale on 06/08/2009 at 02:58 PM

TRAVEL • GPS • (1) Comments • Permalink • Digg It • Add to del.icio.us

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Sakakawea Country, New Town, North Dakota

Sakakawea, Sacajawea, Sacagawea—how do you spell her name? It depends on who’s doing it. In North Dakota, they spell it with two k’s. In the Hidatsa language, her name means "Bird Woman" and it is "Tsakaka-wias." The Hidatsa were the ones who kidnapped Sacagawea as a young girl from her Shoshone homelands in the area of Lemhi Pass (Salmon, Idaho and Dillon, Montana). At the time of Lewis and Clark, the Hidatsas lived with the Mandan Indians in the Knife River Indian Villages, northwest of Bismarck, North Dakota. Today, the Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara live together on the Fort Berthold Reservation in the northwestern corner of North Dakota, and are known as the Three Affiliated Tribes, or MHA Nation.  New Town, the headquarters town for the reservation, is located on Lake Sakakawea. The annual New Town Pow Wow takes place on the second weekend in August. This photo was taken at the 14th Lewis and Clark National Signature Event, hosted by the Three Affiliated Tribes in August , 2006.

New Town’s Reunion Bay is the place where all the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition came together, after they split up to explore Montana on their return journey during the summer of 1806. This photo shows members of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles reenacting the journey at the New Town Signature Event. The expedition used dugout canoes joined together for traveling. This was the type of canoe they were making at Park City, Montana on the Yellowstone River, when the Crow Indians stole their horses.

 Accomodations at New Town are available at the 4 Bears Casino (motel and RV Park) and local motels. The Three Tribes Museum is located near the casino. Other attractions include Lewis & Clark Jet Boat rides, golfing, hiking, biking and horseback riding, fishing and hunting. Lodging includes cabins, ranch vacations, motels, RV and tent campgrounds in New Town and the surrounding area on the reservation.

To return to the matter of Sakakawea/Sacajawea/Sacagawea. The Shoshone spelling is "Sacajawea"  with a "j"; the name means "Boat Launcher"  in the Shoshone language. Two interpretive centers spell it with a "j": the Sacajewea Interpretive, Cultural and Education Center in Salmon, Idaho and the Sacajawea Interpretive Center in Pasco, Washington.  However, the most accepted spelling is "Sacagawea"  with a "g" which has been the choice of almost all contemporary writers and journal editors. William Clark spelled her name as "Sah-kah-gar-we-a" when the expedition departed from Fort Mandan on April 7, 1805; and as "Se car ja we au Dead" in noting the fate of expedition members in a journal entry made  sometime between 1825-28. 

Read more about Sacagawea and the New Town area in my Lewis and Clark Road Trips book. In the next blog, Best Books on Sacagawea, I recommend two books on Sacagawea for adults among my "Top 50 Lewis and Clark Books" and two books on Sacagawea written for young readers available through our Amazon Associate bookstore.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/04/2006 at 02:32 PM

Lewis and Clark Trail • TRAVEL • NATIVE AMERICAN • Sacagawea • North Dakota • (1) Comments • (2) Trackbacks • Permalink • Digg It • Add to del.icio.us

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Crow Indians, Lewis and Clark, and the Battle of Little Bighorn,  Montana

The Crow Indians met William Clark’s party exploring the Yellowstone River in the summer of 1806 near Billings, Montana, but the expedition never saw them—they just had all of their horses stolen in two nighttime raids. Clark’s party of 12 were bringing back a large group of horses to use for trade at the Mandan Villages in North Dakota. 24 horses were stolen while they were building dugout canoes near Park City. The remaining 17 were stolen from Nathaniel Pryor and his party while he was proceeding overland near Hardin, Montana. Today, the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Refuge is located along the BigHorn River near Lovell, Wyoming along the Montana border.

Two hundred years later the Parade of the Crow People was one of the highlights of the 13th National Lewis and Clark Signature Event held at Pompey’s Pillar National Monument in July, 2006.  This parade is also performed  at the great Crow Fair held annually on the 3rd weekend in August at the Crow Agency near the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.  The Crow Fair is one of the largest pow wows in the country. More than 45,000 spectators attend.  The Crow tribal college offers  van tours of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument through Apsaalooke Tours, in partnership with the National Park Service. The battlefield was the site of "Custer’s Last Stand," the 1876 defeat of Lt. Colonel George Custer and his men by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. An Indian Memorial was finally installed at the Battlefield in 2003.

Crow veterans who served in United States Armed Forces were the color guard at opening ceremonies at Pompey’s Pillar. Seven Montana Indian tribes participated in the National Signature Event. The seven tribes—Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Blackfeet, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, Chippewa-Cree, Salish, Kootenai and Pend O’reille—are members of the Montana Tribal Tourism Alliance.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/01/2006 at 09:11 PM

Montana • TRAVEL • NATIVE AMERICAN • (1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Digg It • Add to del.icio.us

Signing at the Signature Rock, Pompey’s Pillar near Billings, Montana

Pompey’s Pillar was named by William Clark for Sacagawea’s little boy, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, who was called "Pomp" or "Pompey."  The toddler, who was born on February 11, 1805 at Fort Mandan near Bismarck, North Dakota, got a giant graffiti rock, a distinctive outcropping about 150 feet high, named after him when he was 17 months old. William Clark climbed to near the top of the rock, carved "William Clark  July 25 1806" in the soft sandstone, and named it "Pompey’s Tower." The editor of his published journal, Nicholas Biddle, renamed  it "Pompey’s Pillar." Located near a natural crossing of the Yellowstone River, the Crown Indians called the butte, Iishbiiammaache, or "the place where the mountain lion dwelled." For centuries Native Americans made hundreds of their own carvings (petroglyphs) and paintings (pictographs) on the rock. 

I signed Lewis and Clark Road Trips books in the Stephen A Ambrose Authors Tent  in 106 degree heat at Pompey’s Pillar. Despite the heat over 25,000 people attended the the 13th Lewis and Clark National Signature Event which was held 30 miles east of Billings, Montana in late July, 2006.  

 Peyton "Bud" Clark, the great, great, great grandson of William Clark reenacted his ancestor’s carving of his name and date on an outdoor stage at Pompey’s Pillar in that terrible heat, but he’s as tough as William Clark and got it done. Bud  has shown all the leadership skills, endurance and enjoyment of people, adventure, and the great outdoors that William Clark had. His participation in the bicentennial observances as the leader of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles has been one of the most important and lasting memories of these special years.

 Not to worry about climbing  the boardwalk if you are visiting. There is a brand new Visitor Center, which was dedicated at the Signature Event, where you can enjoy a view of the Pillar in comfort and use a telescope to get a close up view. The Visitor Center is open from the last weekend in May to the first weekend in September. There is year round access to the rock itself. It’s just a coincidence that this was called a "Signature Event" as this was the name given to all fifteen places around the country who hosted National Signature Events in the bicentennial years.

Pompey’s Pillar became a National Historic Landmark in 1965, and a National Historic Monument in 2001. William Clark’s signature today is enclosed in a protective glass frame, first put there by the local family who leased the land in the 1950’s and later bought it to preserve this remarkable piece of history. Read about Don and Stella Foote on the web’s great Lewis and Clark history website, Discovering Lewis & Clark.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/01/2006 at 12:19 PM

BOOKS/AUTHORS • Lewis and Clark Trail • Montana • TRAVEL • NATIVE AMERICAN • Sacagawea • National Historic Landmark/ Monument • (1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Digg It • Add to del.icio.us