Frances Hunter
blog of the author To the Ends of the Earth
Frances Hunter's Journal
October 2005
October 31, 2005: New bunny
Happy Halloween!
We have a new resident at our house. He's a cute floppy bunny who looks just like a snowshoe hare!
We have had Bear, our mini-lop bunny, for nine and a half years. In bunny years, he's Methuselah. Bear is a gentle, loving, quiet little soul who loves to eat carrots and tropical mix and to be petted for hours. He spends most of his time snoozing. Bear is very special to us, not least because of the way he's overcome some obstacles that would have discouraged a lot of people, let alone rabbits. Over three years ago, Bear developed cataracts in both eyes; within six months of onset, he was more or less stone blind. He was depressed for a while, especially because the blindness coincided with our moving to a new house. Then one day, he decided to make the best of it. Using his whiskers, he explored the new house and yard and settled in. He sometimes bumps into things, but he has his favorite places and doesn't let anything get him down.
A case in point: This past summer, Bear developed a nasty-looking sore place on his ear. At first we thought a bug had bitten him, but when it didn't go away we took him to the vet. It turned out to be a malignant tumor. Within a few hours, Bear underwent major surgery that involved the removal of his whole beautiful long ear except for a small flap. We were afraid the surgery might kill him, but within thirty-six hours, he was hopping around like nothing had happened. What a battle bunny!
Given Bear's years, we had not planned on taking in another bunny until after he passes away. But some weeks ago, our local animal rescue group asked people to volunteer to take rescued pets from Hurricane Katrina if they ended up coming to Austin. After talking it over, we decided to put our names on the list to foster a bunny. After all, people in our part of the country have suffered so much. Taking a bunny would be a very small way we could help start to make things right again.
Well, the Katrina pets mostly ended up being rescued by groups in Georgia and finding homes along the East Coast. So we figured that was that. Last week, however, we got the call. It seemed a group of animals from Hurricane Rita had been discovered in an abandoned makeshift shelter in La Porte, Texas, near Houston. These animals had ridden out the hurricane, but no one ever came back for them. When the Houston SPCA went to the shelter, they found numerous dead animals mixed in with the living, no electricity, filth, hunger, &c.
We were asked to take one of the rabbits who was rescued from this shelter. Given all he has endured, it looks like we have another battle bunny at our house. He is young and playful with a good appetite. He's clean and seems very healthy, and is friendly and curious but shy. It might take a while to win him over. If he fits in well and gets along with Bear, we will probably adopt him. We haven't completely settled on a name but since he's so brave and has been through so much, we might name him Lance after Lance Armstrong!
October 28, 2005: Hells Canyon and Nez Perce National Historic Park
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Hells Canyon |
A huge day! We awoke on the Snake River, having passed through several more dams in the night (I didn't feel a thing). Shortly after breakfast, we arrived in Clarkston, Washington, a small industrial river port. Its twin city, Lewiston, Idaho, is visible on the other side of the river.
The big event of the day was a jet boat tour into Hells Canyon, one of the most interesting and spectacular portions of the Snake River. As our boat traveled through the shallow waters, we were surrounded by towering, craggy mountains on all sides. This area was formed by lava flows that built up the rock formations over millions of years. Although the climate was obviously different, I could see some resemblance to the volcanic cliffs of the Na Pali Coast in Kauai. We saw ospreys, blue herons, and a small family of bighorn sheep. It was a Sunday when we visited, so we also saw lots of other folks out enjoying the river.
As we traveled into the more wild portion of the canyon, the terrain and the river both grew more rugged. Crazy boulders, huge jagged cliffs, and rapids as high as Class 3 made it evident how the canyon got its name. Although Lewis and Clark did not penetrate the Snake as far as Hells Canyon, its wildness gave us a good idea of what the Snake and Columbia were like back in L&C's day, before the dams tamed the rivers.
In a testament to man's determination, we also saw the remains of a ghost town. A few foundations and the steps leading to a planned hotel were all that was left of a mining town started by some optimists about a century ago. Today Hells Canyon is one of the most isolated spots in America. Along the way, we saw a few little houses or trailers, with outhouses out back. It was hard to imagine living such an isolated life. The jet boat company, Beamer's, has the mail contract run the mail back into the canyon. It's a 95-mile trip that includes an overnight stay, and visitors are welcome to go along. Sounded like a lot of fun! As for us, we went about 55 miles into the canyon before turning back.
This is Nez Perce country, and we were able to stop and view some great petroglyphs of dancing, celebrating people. This spot has been inhabited by the Nez Perce and their ancestors for thousands of years and is one of the richest areas for ancient petroglyphs in the country. Most of these are off limits for visitors without special permission. It was interesting to learn that the Nez Perce reject the theories that American Indians emigrated to North America from Asia. They assert that while some Indians may have arrived that way, they were always here.
We got to learn more about the Nez Perce late in the day, when we checked out the visitor center at the Nez Perce National Historic Park in Spaulding, Idaho. They have an excellent museum with great artifacts of Nez Perce culture. A large portion of the collection was gathered and preserved by one of the earliest missionaries to this area just a few years after Lewis and Clark. The Nez Perce are known for their class and finery, and it was all on display here.
Wound down at day's end with a nice relaxing walk along the marina in Clarkston. Capped off the day by watching a short but fascinating movie about the Bretz floods, a series of cataclysmic events during the Ice Age that ravaged this area and carved out the land. More on this in the next trip post.
October 26, 2005: Locking in and Hat Rock
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The Sea Lion in the lock at John Day Dam |
A good beginning day to our tour. One constant to any trip to the West is that somewhere along the line, you have to cover a lot of miles. Today was mostly a travel day. In fact, one reason we chose this Lindblad tour was the ability to travel while we're asleep, letting us see more of the country than we could cover on our own in the same time. Lewis and Clark should have been so lucky.
The Columbia River is in many senses not a river any longer, but a series of lakes confined between hydroelectric dams. To harness the energy of the river, the dams were built at the points with the most famous whirlpools and rapids that Lewis and Clark shot through in their canoes and that plagued generations of pioneers and rivermen. These spectacular but dangerous features are now entirely drowned. The result is a river that is much slower and more placid than the one L&C encountered in 1805-06. The dams include fish ladders for the endangered salmon to continue to try to make their runs. It turns out that while the dams make things difficult for the salmon, it was not the dams but grossly wasteful overfishing in the 19th and early 20th century that almost entirely eradicated them, long before the dams were ever built.
It was imperative that the Columbia remain navigable even with the dams, so each dam includes locks. Overnight, we traveled about 100 miles up the river, passing through the locks of Bonneville Dam and The Dalles Dam. I was aware of some noise and scraping, but not much else. About the time we got up we got to experience the locks in daylight at the John Day Dam. It was very interesting to watch as the ship maneuvered into the lock and tied up to the side. Water then filled the lock, lifting us up about 100 feet to the next level of the Columbia. This process is called "locking in."
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Hat Rock |
We spent much of the morning on deck watching the amazing dry steppe hills and basalt cliffs. When most people think of Oregon and Washington, they think of the coastal rain forests. Yet huge portions are desert, seemingly devoid of much life. Once this place was home to thousands of Indians. When Lewis and Clark came here, they found a denser population of Indians than existed anywhere else in North America. Unfortunately, these people would later be victims of terrible epidemics, but some survive. We saw some Indians fishing along the banks of the river, the descendants of those who helped Lewis and Clark (or, in some cases, stole from them or poked fun at them!).
The Lindblad folks tried to keep us busy with a lecture by Tom, a gift shop in the lounge, and a safety drill. We went through McNary Dam later in the day. We were making good time so we got to stop and have some fun. We put down anchor near Hat Rock State Park, a place described by L&C. We zodiac'd over to the park and took a great hike around a huge basaltic rock formation formed by ancient lava flows. It was in this area that L&C made friends with Chief Yellepit and his Walla Walla Indians. The wildflowers and the pretty creek running through the park make this a beautiful spot to walk or just hang out.
Later, we went to a very entertaining lecture about the wildflowers of the area by the naturalist-guide for our tour, ethnobotanist Sharon Grainger. Wrapped up the day with a wine tasting party with excellent local delicacies including jellies, cheeses, and smoked salmon and oysters.
By the way, in this post I've linked several times to the pictures and stories in Lyn Topkina's great website, Lewis & Clark's Columbia River. Check out the whole site!
October 24, 2005: Chinese Classical Garden and the Sea Lion
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Liz at the Chinese Classical Garden |
Mary at the Portland Marina; |
Began our last day in Portland with a nice pancake breakfast at the Sunshine Cafe. We goofed around the mall near Pioneer Square for a while and spent some time browsing (and buying) in a neat rock and fossil store. Then we went back to the Mallory and packed up. It's almost time to begin our river journey in the wake of Lewis and Clark.
We decided to take this portion of our trip with a tour company called Lindblad Expeditions. Lindblad runs adventure tours on small cruise ships to a number of destinations around the world, including the Columbia River. After doing some research into our options for seeing this part of the Lewis and Clark trail, we decided we could cover the most ground (and water) and get to see and do the most fun things in the time we had by joining up with their river voyage into Lewis & Clark country. This was something new for us, as neither of us had ever been on any type of cruise before.
We took a cab over to the Riverplace Hotel, where we met up with the Lindblad folks and transferred our bags to them. It was exciting to see our ship, the Sea Lion, moored at the dock there. It was still several hours until our departure, so we decided to take the streetcar over to Chinatown for lunch. It turned out that there isn't much of a happening scene in Portland's Chinatown. In fact, it seemed pretty dead--not so much a work in progress as a work completed. Perhaps it's waiting for something new to begin. We did find an enjoyable place for lunch called the House of Louie.
After lunch, we had the pleasure of discovering that something new had begun in Chinatown. The Chinese Classical Garden, just opened in 1999, is a truly beautiful urban oasis. Stone paths meander through various garden "rooms," arranged with plantings, pagodas, and windows and stonework that frame each view, each in their own different and pleasing way. The centerpiece of the garden is a big lilypond with very small koi. It was fun to think about coming back in a few years and seeing how they had grown. Unlike the Japanese Garden, the Chinese Garden had few places to stop, sit, and mediate. Instead, a walking contemplation seemed to be the object. I don't know much about Asian gardening, but I did find an interesting article that explains some of the other differences between the two styles.
Back at the Riverplace, we watched some geese playing in the waterfront park. Then it was time to board the Sea Lion!
Our cabin was small but pleasant, with two little beds, very efficient storage space, and a tiny shower/potty area. Shortly after boarding, we had a champagne reception and met the crew and some of the other guests (about 60 people). We were younger than most of our fellow guests. We're fortunate in having the time and means to travel now, instead of having to wait for years as many people must do. For the most part, we found the other guests to be active, interesting people with many different backgrounds and life experiences.
Then the Sea Lion sailed away from Portland and the only life we had ever known. Out on deck in our rain gear, we got to see first-hand why Portland is known as the City of Bridges. Near the hotel, we went under a vertical lift bridge, meaning that traffic on the bridge had to be stopped and a portion of the bridge raised for the ship to pass under. It was fun to see the bridges in their various styles, the passing city, and the industrial drydocks. Learned that Portland built most of the Liberty ships of World War II, using power generated by the Columbia River dams.
The food on the ship is excellent, especially the breads and the soups. Tonight we had a good salmon dinner, with chocolate bread pudding for dessert. We especially enjoyed meeting Tom Mullen, our historian-guide for this cruise. Tom is the author of Rivers of Change, an exploration of the rivers of Lewis & Clark and how they have changed since the Expedition.
October 21, 2005: Promised Lands
Promised Lands, by Austin author Elizabeth Crook, is a grim novel about grim people caught up in one of the grimmest incidents in Texas history, the Goliad Massacre of 1836. And did I mention that the book is grim?
In following two families as their fate puts them on a collision course with history, Promised Lands is based on a time-honored premise for historical fiction. But Crook, who showed her skill in writing about emotionally damaged people in her earlier novel The Raven's Bride, does not settle for easy cliches about high-spirited women and two-fisted men. The characters in Promised Lands are extraordinarly complex and finely drawn. On the Anglo side of the divide, we follow the Kenner family, particularly dad Hugh, a doctor who has given up practice; daughter Katie, a young woman who yearns to feel needed; and son Toby, a bespectacled boy who wants nothing more than to prove himself. On the Tejano side, we follow the brother-sister pair of Adelaido, an arrogant young caballero, and Crucita, an introspective seamstress whose kindness tears her between love and loyalty.
One of the problems in Promised Lands is the number of characters. Besides the five primary characters mentioned above, there are a half-dozen more point-of-view characters, all with complex motivations, back stories, and emotional baggage. I think that because of the large cast, the story never achieves much momentum. I felt I had to press a mental "Reset" at the beginning of every chapter to follow someone new. Even within a chapter, there is some "head jumping" to include the thoughts and motivations of even minor characters. While the writing is skillfully handled, I got frustrated after a while. This novel is stuffed with enough characters and ideas for three novels. I wish Crook had done some cutting and perhaps refocused the novel on just a few characters. For example, it would have been interesting to see what she did with a book that followed just Katie, Crucita, and Toby, allowing us to see the others only through their eyes.
I also became weary of the depression that enshrouded most of the characters. While I didn't expect a rollicking good time with a book on the Goliad Massacre, I think the novel might have been improved with if the characters had been more varied. Several of these folks were significantly traumatized before the novel even began. A couple of smart-alecks would have provided some much-needed relief for the reader and maybe even have added some good interpersonal conflict to the story.
As it stands, Promised Lands is a novel filled with dread, ghastly events, and remorse. Something of the tone of the book is found in this quote from an old man Adelaido meets when he tries to return to Goliad after the massacre:
"We've all been harmed past redemption...Our town is damned, and all our souls, and no amount of penance will prevail."
October 19, 2005: International Rose Test Garden, Japanese Garden, and Powell's Books
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Liz at the International Rose Test Garden |
The Zen Garden, part of the Japanese Garden in Portland |
Our third day in Portland. This morning we breakfasted on cranberry strudel and latte at a bakery near the Mallory, then got the bus back to Washington Park to visit its famous gardens. The bus stop let us off at the outskirts of the park, where we hiked a short but steep trail through a cool and beautiful forest of tall trees, moss, and ferns.
The International Rose Test Garden is a visual spectacle that is hard to describe in words. I can't imagine what it's like earlier in the season. Even this late in the year, we were able to feast our eyes on hundreds of rose bushes of various breeds and colors. Huge classic roses shared space with tiny miniature varieties. While some of the flowers were fading, others were still blooming in glorious perfection. The garden overlooks a great view of the city.
Next, we took another short but steep walk to the Japanese Garden. This is a large and amazing landscape arranged according to Japanese principles to convey a mood of peace, harmony, and reflection. Instead of flowers, the Japanese garden with rocks, moss, and statuary, placed among footpaths that wander through trees and water features such as ponds and waterfalls. The result is a timeless and cathedral-like setting where you can walk or just sit and enjoy.
Some of the more unusual features of the garden are a large Zen garden and a hall where some beautiful Japanese quilts were on display, including one that depicted two rabbits dancing in the moon. The story that accompanied this design was very moving. A Japanese-American man recalled that when he and his family were forced to go to the internment camps during World War II, he was compelled to give up his pet bunny. He could not find anyone who would agree to take the bunny, so he had to let the bunny go. Later, he saw the bunny dancing in the moon.
These two gardens provided us with a wonderful way to spend the morning. Back at the Rose Garden, we feasted on some enormous hot dogs from a snack cart and enjoyed the beautiful weather. On the way back to the bus, we took a detour and saw Washington Park's abstract Lewis and Clark monument and a statue of Sacagawea and Pomp.
In the afternoon, we paid the obligatory visit to Powell's Books. I was excited about going here, but I actually found it quite overwhelming. It was hard to know how to even begin to tackle the 300,000 book inventory. I think that to truly take advantage of what Powell's had to offer, you would need to live in Portland so you could pay repeat visits. I did manage to buy a book before leaving the store with sensory overload.
Dinner tonight was in an Old Town restaurant called Huber's, a beautiful old-fashioned place furnished in cherry paneling. Mary got the house speciality, turkey pie, and I got great razor clams.
October 17, 2005: Downtown Portland and the Oregon Historical Society
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Our second day in Portland. Today was my 40th birthday! Mary gave me a small present: a great first-day cover with the William Clark stamp and the following quote from him about seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time:
I behold the grandest and most pleasing prospect which my eyes ever surveyed.
What an appropriate message as we continue our great vacation!
For breakfast, we found a great little place near the hotel called the Sunshine Cafe. The staff was Asian but did biscuits and gravy to perfection! After a yummy meal we headed off to explore downtown Portland.
We started in Pioneer Square, then headed north to take a look at some of Portland's ornate historic buildings. Portland has been fortunate in preserving many of these and would make a wonderful place to make a film noir movie. Among the most interesting buildings we saw were the Dekum Building (1892), the New Market Theater (1875), and the Bishop's House (1879), which in its day has housed a rectory, a headquarters for a Chinese tong, and a speakeasy. It's near the old police headquarters, and evidently wires ran between the two buildings. Legend has it that it's unclear who was bugging whom. Today it is home to a Middle Eastern restaurant.
We spent some time in the Old Town neighborhood admiring Ankeny Square, which was undergoing a major renovation. It looks like there are some neat stores and some fun eateries here. We also saw all kinds of people, from yuppies to hippies to disreputable types. One thing that we both noticed during our stay in Portland was the number of people wandering around who were obviously high on something. By casual observation it appeared that this city is not much for enforcing public intoxication laws.
Portland is also a place of tremendous civic willpower. We walked along the beautiful Waterfront Park, which had been reclaimed from the interstate highway some years ago. This is a great place to run or relax. We were interested to see the mast of the battleship Oregon, a hero ship of the Spanish-American War, and the enormous and impressive Salmon Street Fountain. Learned that Waterfront Park was the scene of a tremendous volunteer effort in 1996, when thousands of ordinary citizens pitched in to save the city from flooding. It was hard not to contrast this with the terrible scene of helplessness that recently unfolded in New Orleans.
We took our tired feet to the Park district and the main event of the day, the Oregon Historical Society. It's great that more and more states have made the effort to create museums where citizens and visitors can go learn about the history of the place. We saw a very interesting temporary exhibit entitled "A Fair to Remember," which recreated the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland. It was fun to learn how the Expedition was commemorated 100 years ago and how the fair really put Portland on the map. I decided that of all the attractions, I would especially liked to have seen the flaming fireworks portrait of Meriwether Lewis.
The permanent exhibit, "Oregon My Oregon," detailed the state's history from Indian times through early explorers, missionaries, Oregon Trail pioneers, and early industries such as mining and logging. This exhibit is very well-done, providing you with a substantive look at many facets of the state's history without being overwhelming.
Had a great lunch at a burrito place called Maya's Taqueria, then finished up at the museum by looking at an art exhibit about Portland and a very interesting exhibit about the battleship Oregon.
Dinner was a great birthday treat at Jake's Famous Crawfish, a very busy and lively restaurant. I got stuffed catfish and Mary got crab cakes. Finished it off with a fabulous chocolate truffle cake!
October 14, 2005: The Oregon Zoo
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This is the first of a series of entries in which I'll write about our just-concluded trip, in which we visited Portland and followed the Lewis and Clark Trail on the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
We had never been to the Pacific Northwest before, so we decided to take a few days to visit Portland before embarking on our adventure to follow in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark through the area. We stayed at the Hotel Mallory, a nice older hotel that is ideally located near downtown and the light rail and bus stops. As with many older hotels, the rooms are quite small (i.e., one person has to lie on the bed if the other person wants to move around the room). But the room was attractive and the bed was very comfortable, with a cuddly pillow-top mattress. The only thing that I didn't cotton to at the Mallory was the dining room, which we tried once for breakfast. The food was tasty but ordinary and very overpriced for what you got.
We spent the first day at the Oregon Zoo, which turned out to be the best zoo I've ever seen with the possible exception of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. What sets this zoo apart is the wonderful enclosures. I knew we were in for something special right away when we walked in and were able to kneel near a small window and watch two beautiful leopards just inches away through thick glass.
One of the highlights came early in the day. At Lorikeet Landing, you can buy a small cup of nectar and enter an enclosure full of beautiful multi-colored parrots who fly to you to feed from the cup. They are curious and playful, landing on your arms and head and gently checking out your jewelry, hair, and glasses. It's hilarious!
The Oregon Zoo showcases an incredible variety of animals in many habitats and is really an all-day affair. The habitat-themed exhibits are especially interesting, such as the Alaskan tundra exhibit (with a great grizzly bear), and separate exhibits of both an Amazon and an African rainforest. Being from Austin, we were especially interested to see the gigantic fruit bats, which dwarfed the little Mexican free-tailed bats we have around here. Other memorable exhibits included the elephants (the Oregon Zoo is noted for its captive breeding program), the bald eagle habitat, and aquatic exhibits of beavers and sea otters. But the highlight of the afternoon was the chance to observe the polar bears. The viewing from ground level was fun, but we were blown away by the aquatic view of an enormous swimming bear in his pool. Just inches away, this magnificent creature moved his huge bulk through the water with grace and ease. What a privilege it was to see him this way.
We also had fun watching all the moms visiting the zoo with their screaming kids. A lot of the children were too small to enjoy the zoo. It was clear that, like us, the moms were there to get out of their usual routines and do something fun for themselves.
For dinner tonight we hiked up to the Northwest neighborhood and had a really yummy dinner at a Thai restaurant called Typhoon. I loved my pad thai. Coconut ice cream for dessert!
October 12, 2005: Burr
Like most people of my generation, I've known Gore Vidal primarily as a personality, not as an author. His historical novel Burr (1973) was the first of his books I've ever read.
Burr is constructed as a novel with two narrators. The "present-day" (1833) narrator is Charlie Schuyler, a young law clerk in the office of Aaron Burr, an elderly but still vital man of 77. Charlie becomes interested in the life of this witty and roguish older man and eventually Burr agrees to dictate his memoirs to Charlie. This brings in the second and more interesting narrator, Burr himself, as he spins self-serving yarns about his life from his days as a young soldier in the Revolution to the duel with Alexander Hamilton to the adventurous plot that led to his sensational trial for treason.
As a novel, Burr is a mixed bag. The Aaron Burr portions of the narrative bristle with charm and energy. Every paragraph is full of biting and often hilarious commentary on the Founding Fathers. As with a real autobiography, Burr makes himself look good and glosses over his mistakes and tragedies. He shows no remorse for the death of Hamilton, and barely touches on the only meaningful relationship of his life, that with his daughter Theodosia, whom he molded into his idea of the perfect woman only to lose her in a shipwreck.
I found the Schuyler portions of the book much less interesting. Though Charlie does some investigation into the unanswered questions of Burr's life, I kept wishing there were more chances to hear from other voices. We're mostly just left to take Burr's word about things. Instead of more digging into the more nebulous aspects of Burr's life, the Charlie portion of the story is bogged down with two subplots that I found less than compelling: Charlie's relationship with a doomed prostitute and his involvement in a scheme to betray Burr by attempting to prove that the current presidential candidate, Martin Van Buren, is actually Burr's illegitimate son. At one point, he even meets Van Buren, who is portrayed as extremely charismatic. I just couldn't get interested in this ancient political "gotcha."
A larger problem with Burr is that the entire book is done as narrative summary. Almost nothing happens in "real time." Though Vidal is so skilled as a writer that the voice of Burr reminiscing about old times is very entertaining, this format dictates that there can be no surprises and no suspense. All of the events are long in the past, and both Burr and the reader know exactly where it's all going. We hear Burr tell about the dire insult that led him to duel Hamilton, but we never feel the anger. We hear about Burr's love for Theodosia (and the implications of others that it may have been unhealthy), but we never feel this one grand passion of the old rascal. We hear Burr weave his tale about the plot to storm into Mexico with the help of the nefarious James Wilkinson, but we're never recruited into Burr's dreams of conquest. Again we only have Burr's own words to go by:
"To make a civilisation on this God-forsaken continent!" Suddenly in the Colonel's face I saw a glimpse of something I had not seen before, a kind of fury and contempt that was usually masked by the exquisite irony, the serene good humour. "Between the dishonest canting of Jefferson and the poisonous egotism of Hamilton, this state has been no good from the beginning. Now, it starts to change with old Jackson. For the better, I hope. But I can assure you that that early republic of ours was no place for a man who wanted to make a better civilisation and share it with a host of other choice spirits, such as I meant to establish in Mexico. Unfortunately, I was not able to be a king--though I was very nearly a president--but in my own way I have been lucky for I have always been able to indulge my true passion which is to teach others, to take pleasure in bringing out the best in men and women, to make them alive, and though I did not achieve any sort of kingdom in this world, I have established small human dominions along my way, proved to the doubting that woman had souls, and trained a hundred boys to make the best of their life, without complaint, or dishonour."
This is as close as we ever come to knowing what motivated Aaron Burr. His inner journey remains hidden from the reader, making Burr a book that is fun to read but emotionally distant.
October 10, 2005: Dueling
Lewis, Clark, and other southern men came from a culture of dueling, a tradition that did not die out completely until the Civil War. Dueling went back centuries in England. In 1777, a group of Irishmen drew up a set of rules for dueling called the Code Duello. This prescribed everything from the time of day a challenge could be issued to the number of shots or wounds required for the satisfaction of honor.
Neither Lewis nor Clark ever fought a duel, though they actually first met as young army officers when Lewis was court-martialed for foolishly challenging his superior officer to a duel. He was acquitted and reassigned to Clark's unit. Years later, as Louisiana territorial governor, Lewis did his best to get into a duel with Frederick Bates, the territorial secretary. The two men despised each other and exchanged insults deadly enough to lead to a duel. When Bates deliberately snubbed Lewis at a party, it was only the intervention of Clark that prevented Lewis from issuing a challenge. It seems likely that if Lewis had not died when he did, he and Bates would have eventually met on the "field of honor." (Bates's brother Tarleton had actually died in a famous duel in Pittsburgh in 1806).
Clark once acted as a second for a friend in a later duel. The purpose of the second was to try to reconcile the two parties without violence, and to assist his friend at the duel if the dispute could not be worked out. The seconds handled all correspondence related to the challenge. So in this case, Clark's duty would be have been to try to get his friend to apologize and thus avoid the duel. This would only work if the other party actually agreed to accept the apology. Some offenses could not be apologized away. For example, Rule 5 of the Code Duello states that a blow is strictly prohibited between gentlemen, and cannot be apologized for.
If it was impossible to work things out, then it would be up to the person who had been challenged to choose the weapons and the time and place of the encounter. Most duellists chose flintlock pistols as their weapons of choice. The chances of dying were relatively slim, since these pistols were quite unreliable, were inaccurate, and you weren't supposed to aim.
Apologies could be given up until the time when the duel began. After combat began, it could be stopped at any point at which honor was satisfied. So this could be after one round of shots, or several rounds. Sometimes, someone would try to continue the duel even as they were lying on the ground wounded (not unlike the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail).
Only gentlemen dueled because only gentlemen had "honor." I guess the rest of the folks just brawled or shot each other, but it wasn't a duel. Eventually, dueling fell from favor and degenerated into the more familiar Western gunfight.
Men who refused to duel were sometimes "posted," meaning a statement accusing them of cowardice might be hung in a public area or published in the newspaper. James Wilkinson once challenged the acerbic Virginia senator John Randolph to a duel, and "posted" him when Randolph refused to meet him. It's easy to imagine how much Randolph cared (not at all).
In 1842, Abraham Lincoln, then a state legislator, was challenged to a duel by James Shields, the Illinois state auditor, who believed that a series of insulting articles published about him in the Springfield paper had been authored by Mary Todd Lincoln. The always quick-thinking Lincoln chose broadswords as the weapon. When the much shorter Shields came to the place chosen for the duel and saw the powerful and gangly Lincoln waving his sword around, he decided to back down and the two settled their differences on the spot.
October 7, 2005: Wilkinson's Reflections
In 1804, James Wilkinson, the commanding general of the United States Army, was named governor of the new Louisiana Territory. Unbeknownst to President Jefferson, Wilkinson was a habitual traitor and had been on the Spanish payroll as a spy for more than ten years, all the while as he climbed to the top ranks of the American military. The full details of Wilkinson's treachery would not be known until after the Spanish-American War in 1898, when Spanish archives recovered in Cuba detailed the activities of the man known as "Agent 13." There are also a number of Spanish archives at the Texas State Archives, where I work, and I've seen Wilkinson's name in various documents. I wish I could read Spanish so I knew what they were saying about him.
As territorial governor, Wilkinson, as usual, needed some money. In exchange for $12,000, he wrote up a document for the Spanish that he called "Reflections." In this document, Wilkinson offered advice for the Spanish, who were anxious about being able to hold on to the rest of their empire in North America. Among the ideas Wilkinson suggested were continued spying and making alliances with the Indians. He also betrayed the route of the Lewis and Clark Expediton, suggesting that the Spanish hunt down Lewis and Clark and take them prisoner (or if necessary, kill them) to prevent their Expedition from proceeding west.
The Spanish didn't need much encouragement. Prior to the Louisiana Purchase, Meriwether Lewis had met with the Spanish governor of Louisiana, Carlos Dehault Delassus, and requested permission to proceed upriver with his expedition. (Although France owned the territory, it had long been owned by Spain and France had retained most of the Spanish government officials.)
Delassus denied permission, but Lewis was able to wait a few months until the territory passed into United States hands. Although they no longer owned Louisiana, the Spanish were alarmed about American designs on the territory they retained in Texas and the Southwest. Spain was extremely dependent on the silver mines of their American colonies for income and feared ruin if these were to be seized by Americans. During 1804-05, they sent four expeditions from New Mexico to the Missouri River (only a 25-day march) to try to intercept the man they called "Captain Merry" and his band. One Spanish force came within 100 miles of Lewis and Clark before turning back because of desertions and hostile Indians.
In typical Wilkinsonian fashion, the general later recycled "Reflections" (with a few obvious changes!) and gave the document to Jefferson, retooled to focus on what Jefferson should do about the Spanish. The Spanish did intercept the 1806 Red River Expedition under Zebulon Pike, a story in which Wilkinson was involved up to his eyeballs. I'll post about this at a future time--it's a very interesting topic.
October 5, 2005: Fort Clatsop Burns Down
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Mary at Fort Clatsop |
Two weeks ago today, we were visiting Fort Clatsop, the replica of the fort where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-1806 after completing their long journey to the Pacific Ocean. Seeing Fort Clatsop was a highlight of our trip to the Columbia River area. Built in 1955 by volunteers to the exact specifications recorded in Clark's journal, Fort Clatsop was located on or very near the spot where the Corps of Discovery hunkered down in the rain forest, dreaming of home. Little did we know that we would be among the last people to ever get to see it.
Monday night, Fort Clatsop burned to the ground, just 40 days before the bicentennial signature event scheduled to celebrate Lewis and Clark's achievement. Authorities suspect arson. (Update 10/26/2005: Investigators ruled the fire started accidentally from a spark overlooked in the enlisted mens' barracks). According to The Oregonian, the half of the fort where the enlisted men would have slept completely collapsed, and the captains' quarters is just a burned shell.
The day we visited Fort Clatsop, we were treated to a superb sunny day, something very rare in the Astoria area. Poor Lewis and Clark had only 6 days of sun in the entire time they lived there. We found the historical park crowded with people, but we got a good chance to see and hang out at the recreated fort. The thing that struck me the most was how tiny it was -- about the size of two portable school classrooms with a small run between. It was amazing to think of being cooped up here for months. We had time to visit with a park ranger in period dress who was making tallow candles.
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The captains' quarters. Imagine the conversations. |
Little house in the big woods:
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Recreated smokehouse |
We also had a chance to walk in the beautiful coastal rainforest, something we had never experienced, and see the site of the spring they would have used. The day we were given at Fort Clatsop was so beautiful, it was hard to imagine that the Corps of Discovery was mostly miserable and flea-bitten during their stay. Having suffered terribly during their journey through the Bitterroot mountains, and then battered by weeks of exposure to almost constant rain, Lewis and Clark found in Fort Clatsop a place of refuge but not one of comfort or plenty. As Clark noted on February 26, 1806, "We have three days' provision only in store and that of most inferior dried Elk a little tainted—what a prospect for good living at Fort Clatsop!"
Lewis and Clark built Fort Clatsop in less than a month, working from December 7 to December 30, 1805. Let's hope it doesn't take too long for volunteers and the park service to rebuild this treasured piece of American history.
October 3, 2005:
What Did They Look Like?
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William Clark in his 20s, by an unknown artist. This portrait was in the custody of the Clark family but its whereabouts have been unknown for decades. This reproduction appeared in Century Magazine in 1904. |
Another challenge any author faces is to decide what the characters looked like. When writing historical fiction, the author may or may not have good source material to work with. In the cases of Lewis and Clark, there are several portraits available of each man, though each presents its own frustrations for the writer.
The best and most famous portraits of Lewis and Clark were painted by Charles Willson Peale after the Expedition. The Peale portrait of Lewis, painted in 1807 when Lewis was 33, shows a sharp-featured man with dark reddish-brown hair that appears to be going to gray. In this portrait, his hair is straight and styled in the popular Roman cut of the day. In earlier portraits, two profiles by French artist Charles Saint-Memin, Lewis has longer, curly hair tied back in a queue, but his features are very recognizable from the Peale portrait--strong and intense, with that unique combination of belligerence and prissiness that so characterizes the personality of Meriwether Lewis. The only other portrait of Lewis is a caricature by Saint-Memin done after the Expedition. This is the only full-body portrait of Lewis. While interesting and consistent with the better portraits in terms of the face, this portrait is really only a cartoon apparently designed to show off the costume Lewis is wearing. The body proportions are just not right; Meriwether Lewis could not have walked to the Pacific Ocean on those tiny feet.
Because he lived into old age, there are more portraits of William Clark. The date of the Peale portrait is uncertain. It may have been done in 1807, the same time as Lewis's portrait, or it may have been done in 1810, when Clark traveled to Philadelphia to see to the publication of the journals after Lewis's death. Clark would thus be either 37 or 40 years old in this portrait. Peale's portrait of Clark shows a rugged, soldierly man with a frank, direct gaze. His large blue eyes have a knowing look about them that is also present in all of Clark's other portraits, even the one shown here in which Clark was only in his 20s.
According to his family, Clark's best likeness was painted by John Wesley Jarvis around the same time as the Peale portrait, not long after Lewis's death. There is a significant difference between these two portraits in terms of the famous red hair. In the Peale portrait, it's short and combed over to conceal Clark's receding hairline. In the Jarvis portrait, it's long and worn in the old-fashioned Revolutionary style. Clark preferred his hair long and wore it that way until his death years later. Kentucky artist Joseph Bush painted a sterner and more middle-aged Clark in 1817. (Bush also painted a heart-breaking final portrait of George Rogers Clark that he later said was not the best portrait he had ever painted, but sadly the best likeness he ever captured, showing the deterioration of this once magnificently handsome man.) William Clark was interested in art and later patronized the western artist George Catlin. Several portraits exist of Clark as an older man.
Some L&C publications use a Saint-Memin profile of Clark as a mate to the one of Meriwether Lewis. However, this portrait bears no resemblance to the other portraits of Clark, and L&C artists such as Michael Haynes have questioned its authenticity. The Indiana State Library site has a great discussion of several other William Clarks who were well-known at the same time as our William Clark, and it's my personal theory that this portrait may represent one of those gentlemen.