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The Passage through the Garden is a book written about the history of the Lewis and Clark adventure. The book introduces the history behind the drive to find a passage to India. Thomas Jefferson, from a very young age, was very passionate about finding this passage via the river system. Many tales were told of a navigable waterway, but no one knew for sure where it was at. Jefferson was rejected at first when he approached William Clark’s brother to find this route. He then asked Lewis to take the task of finding a way to the Pacific. Lewis agreed, and he and Jefferson spent three years researching maps trying to find the best routes to take. Lewis asked Clark to be a captain with him, and they both put together a team of explorers called the Corps of Discovery. It took a long time for the party to actually depart onto the river because Lewis was in St. Louis trying to find more useful maps. The impatient Clark departed with the team early. Much of the book has quotes from journals of either Clark or Lewis describing the weather, river conditions, food situation, etc. The team constructed Fort Mandan a few miles away from the Mandan and Minatari tribes during their first winter in 1803. They received very useful information from the natives that both helped and confused the party. Some of the information was misinterpreted, and this is discussed later in the book. The party was very satisfied with the conditions on the plains. They eventually became accustomed to the hard winter, and there was always an abundant food supply. In the spring when the ice thawed, they carried on with their adventure. Charbonneau along with his wife Sacagawea, a Shoshoni Native, convinced Lewis to take them along as she would be useful in communicating with the Shoshoni tribe who they would need supplies from. The party endured hardships in the Rockies and Cascades. There was a limited food supply, and weather conditions were not ideal. They finally made it to the West Coast though they were disappointed because they realized there was no passage to India. They set up their second camp to wait out the winter there with rainy, cold weather and little food. They were eager to leave the coast in the spring. There were more dramatic encounters with natives on their way back then on their way to the coast. Clark’s medicine skills were very handy to the team. Much trading was done, and the party eventually made it back. The last chapter in the book discusses revisions made to the maps the Lewis and Clark made. It also discusses the importance of Lewis and Clarks discoveries.
I know I am going over the limit for words, but it is very difficult to summarize a 400 page book into 300 words. I was very bored with the book until half-way through. Most of the first couple of chapters discussed rivers, and differences in people's maps. I got the point that little was known about the west before Lewis and Clark. Most of the maps were composed based off of information received from traders, trappers, and natives. I was very impressed with the ability of those people to construct maps based off of astronomy. It was pretty amazing when the explorers used exact lines like 50th parallel to label rivers. Many errors were made in creating these maps, but I was astonished with the accuracy for the most part. I also found it interesting that Jefferson had such a passion to find this passage to India. It was my understanding before reading this book that he just basically asked a group of guys to go explore the west. They actually researched for three years prior to departing on the expedition. Jefferson owned a library of books that helped Lewis prepare for the trip. Sacagawea was mentioned very little in the book. Being from ND, I learned more about her than I did Lewis and Clark. The author’s focus was largely on the geography of the adventure, and very little was focused on the qualities of the people. Many excerpts were taken from journals to give the reader insight on what the team was experiencing. I was surprised with the poor spelling of those people! I am way over the limit so I will conclude with saying this book was boring in that so much of it was focused on geography. I would like to have read more about the experiences like encounters with the natives, characters of the people in the party, etc. It was, however, pretty neat to learn about all of the history of the land, and all of the detail that went into the expedition.~Chris Schmaltz