Reviewing Movies

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was dispatched by Thomas Jefferson to
find a North-West Passage. Instead it set out to be the first team to
explore the American West, cross the Rockies, and make it's way down the
Columbia River to the Pacific. Their Expedition is an iconic part of
American History. As a Canadian I could wish that someone would do
similar justice to the exploits of Simon Fraser and Alexander Mackenzie.

This team rowed a heavy river boat up to the source of the Missouri
River, crossed the Rockies and made it to the mouth of the Columbia
River. Merriwether Lewis was a mentally unstable genius who was
commissioned to undertake this geographical expedition and had the good
sense to team up with the more level-headed military officer Andrew
Clark. It is Lewis' Journals that form the basis for later histories of
this expedition.

The mini-series has no actors rather telling the story by voice-over
narration from Tom Hanks via historical photographs, in situ video, and
strategic re-enactments. The series is rather academic in nature, can
tend to drag at times, but accomplishes what it sets out to do. The team
documented and sent back live specimens and skins of the critters and
vegetation of the plains, mapped the areas they traversed, met and
parlayed with the Indian Tribes they encountered along the way, and
explored then-uncharted territory. They could not have succeeded without
the heroic efforts of the men who accompanied them nor the help of the
young Indians who aided them along the way and the tribes they
encountered in their travels.

Merriwether Lewis died at a young age under mysterious circumstances at
his home along the Natchez Trace. Museums to the expedition exist near
the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon and at other locations along
the path of their trek.