Thursday, November 23, 2006

ITs WOOT Chinook Canoe Comes to Clarksville, Indiana

In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share these photos taken by Betty Kluesner of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles in early November, 2006 at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana. Dick Brumley, the builder of the Chinook Canoe, ITs WOOT, which means "Black Bear" is showing it to schoolchildren during the "Lewis and Clark Homecoming" at Clarksville. The canoe was blessed in Chinook ceremonies at Long Beach, Washington. Members of the DESC wrote about it in their modern online journal on March 20, 2006.  Bud Clark, the leader of DESC, and great-great-great grandson of William Clark wrote:  Our relationship with the Chinook has taken us outside the realm of living history and into a very personal relationship, where perhaps in terms of healing and reconciliation, we are making history! To everyone’s knowledge this is the first time in 200 years permission was granted to replicate a Chinook canoe and subsequently receive a tribal blessing to use it in our journey. The special bond we have made with the Chinook is very real and meaningful, and we in the Discovery Expedition know it represents the very essence of our Bicentennial Legacy.

 Members of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles sleep in replicas of the same army tents used by members of the Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery.  When Meriwether Lewis joined William Clark at the Falls of the Ohio, they conducted ceremonies enlisting the "Nine Young Men from Kentucky" into the United States Army. Two of the men had accompanied Meriwether Lewis from the east: 18 year old George Shannon who joined him at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and John Colter, at Maysville, Ohio. The other seven were from the local area of Clarksville and Louisville, Kentucky. They were: cousins Charles Floyd and Nathaniel Pryor; brothers Joseph and Reuben Field; William Bratton; John Shields and George Gibson. Lewis had asked Clark to find "some good hunters, stout, healthy, unmarried men, accustomed to the woods, and capable of bearing bodily fatigue in a pretty considerable degree."

The George Rogers Clark Cabin at the Falls of the Ohio State Park overlooks the Ohio River with a view  of Louisville, Kentucky across the river. General General George Rogers Clark founded both Louisville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Indiana. He was the older brother of William Clark, and second only to George Washington in the respect of his countrymen for the services he performed during the Revolutionary War. Due to his military victories, Britain ceded the Northwest Territory to the United States at the end of the Revolutionary War, doubling the size of the new country. In 1783 George Rogers Clark had been asked by Thomas Jefferson to lead an expedition across the continent to the Pacific Northwest. Twenty years later, his younger brother would fulfill his dream. William Clark was living with his brother at his home when he joined the expedition.  To read more about George Rogers Clark, visit the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park website.

Posted by Kira Gale on 11/23/2006 at 10:58 AM

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