Friday, August 29, 2003

By Patricia Lowry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

When the Lewis and Clark re-enactors set off in their keelboat from Elizabeth Sunday morning for Pittsburgh, it won't be to lead a flotilla of powerboats, kayaks and canoes to Brunot's Island.

The Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, Mo., has decided its keelboat will not head up a water parade, which could include hundreds of boats, as was originally planned.

Dave Cain, of Raytown, Mo., a member of The Lewis and Clark Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, Mo., helps raise the mast on a keelboat during a training exercise for the expedition yesterday on the Monongahela River in Elizabeth. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette) Click photo for larger image. Related article Read more about the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition in the Post-Gazette's ongoing series.

"We've been hearing about an awful lot of small boats in a very small area," said Peter Geery, the group's on-site commander. "Our concern is how do we get through this mass of boat craft" without damaging the keelboat or causing damage to other boats.

"If anything happens to that boat, we're dead in the water. We can't complete our operation," Geery said yesterday in Elizabeth, where he was auditioning re-enactors for the trip from among the 25 who were camped along the Monongahela River, just upstream of where the keelboat was docked. It arrived there Tuesday.

They will leave from Elizabeth because some historians believe the Corps of Discovery's keelboat, or one of the pirogues that accompanied it, was built there rather than farther downstream.

When the expedition learned of the flotilla earlier this summer, Geery said, he thought they would be leading a small group of canoeists.

"We're concerned about how this thing has grown. And we found out they're charging people [money] on the Gateway Clipper. They're trying to make this a super-show."

The flotilla is being coordinated by the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, which plans to re-enact Meriwether Lewis' Aug. 31, 1803, visit to Brunot's Island. During Lewis' brief stop at the island after leaving Pittsburgh, a local man named Blaise Cenas discharged Lewis' air gun, accidentally striking a woman in the temple. She wasn't seriously hurt and the expedition proceeded on down the Ohio River.

Heinz history center Vice President Betty Arenth said it's hard to tell how many boats will participate because there is no advance registration. She said she'd tried, but was unable, to reach Geery yesterday to invite him to a safety meeting planned for today.

"All of a sudden to have a safety meeting? We have obligations here [in Elizabeth]," Geery said. "I don't know whether our people could get away for that. Why wasn't this conferred to us on the 25th of August, when we were at the Heinz museum to pick up the boat?"

Geery said he's especially concerned about what happens after the keelboat leaves Brunot's Island.

"When we turn back [upriver toward Pittsburgh], we're on our own and we think that is a very dangerous situation," he said. "We're thinking of going to the Point, sailing up the Allegheny and waiting for this whole thing to get past us so we can get back to our mooring at Point State Park."

"I've had long talks with Peter [about] where we're going to meet, how we're going to meet, how we'll turn and slowly go back to the Point. All of that was agreed on," said David Halaas, museum division director for the history center.

In a power plant's shadow, the Lewis and Clark re-enactors hold a training exercise on the Monongahela River in Elizabeth yesterday. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette) Click photo for larger image.

Geery said his concern relates to the treatment the keelboat received while it was parked across from the history center, open to the elements.

"There's a trust factor here and I'm not putting my crew or my boat at risk," he said.

The history center had planned to exhibit the 7-ton, 55-foot-long keelboat inside this summer, but Halaas said he discovered too late that the center had miscalculated the length of the boat trailer and it was displayed outside instead.

"They said they would prefer we had a tent over it, but that was not in our agreement," Halaas said. "We said the whole point was that people could see the boat, so they agreed."

He said the history center's reenactment on Brunot's Island will go on as scheduled, even if the keelboat doesn't participate in the flotilla.

"A lot of people have worked on this, from the Coast Guard to the Carnegie. It's a coming together of Pittsburgh in very positive ways and we'll just do it."

The Discovery Expedition re-eneactors are expected to leave Elizabeth about 7:30 or 8 a.m. Sunday after a 6 a.m. sunrise service and blessing of the boat. On arriving in Pittsburgh, they will set up camp at Point State Park and be available to meet people in the afternoon and the evening.

Volunteers with the Discovery Expedition will reenact the portion of the expedition that sailed on the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The group also has two 40-foot pirogues, which are flat-bottomed boats that hold supplies.

They will leave Monday morning for Rochester, where they'll remain until Wednesday, when they will travel to Georgetown. On Thursday, they will head for Steubenville, Ohio, and depart from there on Sept. 6 for Wellsburg, W.Va., where they will visit the grave of Lewis and Clark crew member Patrick Gass.

Staff writer Marylynne Pitz contributed to this report.

E-mail this story   Print this story