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From here to there: The lessons of Lewis and Clark

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The historic trek of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began with a trip to Philadelphia.

Far from highways and accessible only by canoe, a 150 mile stretch along northern Montana's Missouri River Breaks is virtually unchanged since Lewis wrote in his journal on May 31, 1805: "As we passed on it seemed as if those seens of visionary enchantment woud never have and (an) end; for here it is too that nature presents to the view of the traveler vast ranges of walls of tolerable workmanship, so perfect indeed are those walls that I should have thought that nature had attempted here to rival the human art of masonry had I not recollected that she had first began her work."
Far from highways and accessible only by canoe, a 150 mile stretch along northern Montana's Missouri River Breaks is virtually unchanged since Lewis wrote in his journal on May 31, 1805: "As we passed on it seemed as if those seens of visionary enchantment woud never have and (an) end; for here it is too that nature presents to the view of the traveler vast ranges of walls of tolerable workmanship, so perfect indeed are those walls that I should have thought that nature had attempted here to rival the human art of masonry had I not recollected that she had first began her work."Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer

Two hundred years after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began the legendary trail, Inquirer staff photographer Tom Gralish followed. These images first published in The Inquirer in 2003.

Lewis served as Jefferson's personal secretary before the president asked him to explore the Louisiana Purchase. A year before the 1804-06 Corps of Discovery, Jefferson sent Lewis to the intellectual, medical, scientific, and trading center of the new country - Philadelphia - for training and supplies for the expedition.

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