J.M.: The expedition is often compared to modern space exploration, what do you think of that analogy? Do you think that it makes any sense? Is it a realistic analogy?

S.A.: Technology is so much different, and the modern space explorer has an idea of what he's getting into. Photography, radar, other of the advances in technology let them know, something at least, of what's on the moon, and beyond the moon what's out there in the planets.

When Lewis and Clark went around a bend in the river, they were damned if they knew what was going to be ahead. They just didn't know. Once they left Fort Mandan, until they had gotten down to, really, Fort Clatsop, the mouth of the Columbia River, they didn't know what the hell was ahead. On the return journey when they split up at Lolo in Montana and Clark went up the Yellowstone and Lewis went up to Two Medicine River and explored what is today's northern Montana. They didn't know.

That's one of my favorite stories is when they said goodbye on the Fourth of July in 1806 at Lolo, Montana, they shook hands and they said "I'll see you in six weeks at the mouth of the Yellowstone." And I'm goddamned if they didn't do it. Now that's hubris. Those are men who have a great confidence in themselves, and in their men. They knew their men would do whatever they told them to, and they knew what they were capable of. And so they're going out — Lewis is going up this way and Clark is going down this way — they are going into territory that neither one of them had ever been in before, and they didn't know what to expect. I'll see you at the mouth of the Yellowstone. And they did.

J.M.: That's one of the most moving moments in the whole expedition isn't it?

S.A.: Yes.

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