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Pittsburgh celebrated the departure of Meriweather Lewis all summer long!

  1. The Science Center ran the IMAX film, "Lewis & Clark" and showed the stars over the expedition (Navigation by stars) in the Buhl Planetarium. They also ran a display of the journal of Patrick Gass, with drawings from that era.
  2. At the Phipps Conservatory there was a display of plants unknown to easterners at the time, that Lewis "discovered" and brought back from the west.
  3. The History Museum had the replica keelboat in its parking lot, and on Saturdays had re-enactors of Meriweather Lewis, York, the soldiers and Seaman, the dog. The ground floor was devoted to a display of the trip of Art Rooney (owner of the Steelers) and his family, that retraced the Lewis & Clark expedition last year, and stopped and photographed many important sites along the way. There were also lectures on various aspects of the expedition - the food, the medicine, equipment, and legal aspects.
  4. The traveling truck based multi media show came as near as Point Marion and there were several bus trips to see it and Friendship Hill nearby.

Re-enactors in Elizabeth

In late August, the keelboat was trucked to Elizabeth, where the corps of re-enactors gathered to begin their trek down the riverways. We went to Elizabeth to photograph the boat and the re-enactors, and were able to talk with many of them. They were so much more accessible in a small town like Elizabeth. We talked to one man from Rochester, PA and two from Ohio - it seems this crew will be drawn from many states, like the original. We returned the next day to Elizabeth, but the boat was gone! We were told it had gone to McKeesport for an afternoon celebration. Quick, into the car and arrived in McKeesport just in time to watch them push off. The wonderful pictures we captured on that afternoon appear on this site.

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On Aug. 31, 200 years to the hour after Meriweather Lewis pushed off from the boatyard located where the Liberty Bridge now spans, Pittsburgh planned to hold an extravagant celebration. The keelboat would lead a flotilla of over 200 canoes and other pleasure craft, and row to Brunot's Island where the shooting would be re-enacted. They would then return to Point Park, where the encampment would be set up, and mingle with interested Pittsburghers.

2 days before the event, the Elizabeth boat pulled out of the celebration, citing inexperience and worries that the boat might be damaged. We'd seen their inept departure from McKeesport and understood their concerns.

But the organizers of the event had a problem. What to do? It turns out there is another replica keelboat, belonging to the "Friends of Discovery" in Onawa, Iowa. A flurry of calls, emails, strings pulled, travel arrangements made and licenses granted, and the second keelboat was trucked to Pittsburgh, a distance of 900 miles, on a holiday weekend. It arrived in time to be launched under the Liberty Bridge at 11 am on the 31st and lead the grand flotilla. On it was the Meriweather Lewis re-enactor who had been at the History Museum since July, and a Seaman re-enactor. (Meanwhile, the Elizabeth boat had been towed in the early morning hours and tied up at the point.)

The shooting at Brunot's Island was re-enacted 3 times so that all the flotilla could drift by and see the action, and then the Iowa keelboat, heavy now with 2 Meriweather Lewis re-enactors, returned to the point.

What a celebration! 2 keelboats, 3 Meriweather Lewis enactors and 1 Seaman. And zero Tippis, who chose to avoid the crowds and go to the Johnstown Folk Festival instead.