Sacagawea

The Lewis and Clark Expedition camped nearby on October 16 and 17, 1805, on its way to the Pacific Ocean. One of the members of the Expedition was Sacagawea, a young Northern Shoshone. During the winter of 1804-05 at Fort Mandan in present-day North Dakota, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark hired Sacagawea’s French-Canadian husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, as an interpreter, and Sacagawea accompanied him as the Expedition’s “interpretess,” as termed in the captains’ journals. She has been celebrated as a guide who bravely led the Expedition up the Missouri River, over the Rocky Mountains, and down the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean while caring for her infant son and husband, but the Expedition journals reveal her as an interpreter and food gatherer, a symbol of friendship, and a link to her own tribe. Although she was not a guide for the entire journey, she did recognize landmarks in the lands of her own people in the Rocky Mountains. In 1931, the nearby state park was named in her honor.

Pasco, Washington · United States