Getting older is a bummer sometimes. Suddenly and without warning, things that your parents or grandparents said that you thought insane, preposterous, or old-fashioned start to ring with truth – and disturbingly so. My grandfather, who was an airplane mechanic overseas during World War II, once told me that he thought people were getting soft – that folks were much tougher back in the day. All of his jokes about walking to school in three feet of snow uphill both ways without shoes set aside, I am beginning to fear grandpa was right.
I was caught in a moment of revelation recently while sipping steaming coffee and marking notes about a text my high school students and I have been studying in Literature of the American West. I was lounging quietly on couches in the Student Union, pondering the outrageous feats of the Corps of Discovery, which are found in The Journals of Lewis and Clark, when a conversation near-by suddenly and steadily grew in volume. It grew in volume to the point where I was intensely staring at a section of flooring rather than reading. I was now eaves-dropping against my will.
A young man was relaying a story of what he considered extreme survival in the Snowy Mountains from the previous summer. His voice boomed as he boisterously set the scene. His ankle was swollen and sore from a slip on a rocky hill and he was battling a nasty head cold. Still, this brave soldier managed, with great force and effort of will and endurance, to hike two miles to his vehicle and make the hour drive home.
The ohs and ahs of this young man’s captive audience displayed the effectiveness of his boasting, but I was incredulous. After all, I was at that very moment reading about the exploits of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery. A sore ankle and a two-mile hike with a head cold would be a glorious and simple day for any member of that crew, accustomed to 18 mile days in loaded dugout canoes paddling relentlessly upstream. This episode set me to thinking about the many other sober and drunken claims I’d observed from friends and strangers alike over the past year that touched on outdoor survival skills or some stirring personal victory over severe natural elements.
I decided it might be interesting to put some of these boasts up against just a few of the trials and tribulations of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery.
I walked five miles in the freezing rain to get to a phone because my car broke down!
Clark once hiked 30 miles in a day in two feet of snow without socks hunting game for food while the Corps was near starving in the dead of winter. He complained only of considerable fatigue.
I once camped for three cold nights in the Wind River Mountains with nothing but jerky and a sleeping bag.
Lewis and the crew camped for a whole winter on the west coast in a hand-built camp while low on clothes and eating nothing but elk meat for the entire winter.
I had this awful flu all weekend while we were hunting.
The Corps of Discovery either bled out or administered an intense laxative to anyone with illness, and illness was very common on the expedition.
I went white water rafting one time! It was so intense and dangerous!
Lewis, Clark, and company traveled upstream in handmade dugouts for hundreds of miles. They then braved the relentless rapids of the Columbia River with current at their backs in these same clunky wooden boats. The Natives watching these crazy thrill seekers on the rapids stood by the banks waiting expectantly for them to crash so they could collect all of their supplies.
There was rain and snow the whole trip. We were freezing out there in our tents.
The Corps of Discovery were caught in a hail storm featuring hail the size of baseballs, and the men were without cover and some were without clothes. The hail left them bloodied, but undaunted.
I was forced to eat granola bars, fish, and trail mix for four days on the backpacking trip.
The men of the Corps were driven to eat dogs and horses on many occasions when on the verge of starvation. Once, when traveling dozens of miles over snow-capped mountains approaching winter, they even resorted to eating candles out of hunger.
I have outdoor survival stories of my own, but after reading and learning about many of the situations and routine struggles that the Corps of Discovery endured on their long trip to the west coast and back across an altogether alien countryside without any form of help or communication with home, I think I might keep my own tales in the vault for a while. In the meantime, I can’t help but raise an amused eyebrow when a hardcore outdoors-man or woman pipes her horn or beats his chest regarding some tough-as-nails survivor skills story.
I’ll just sip my warm coffee and think: Shoot, Grandpa was right. Lewis and Clark were so much tougher than you.
