The Legacy of Lewis and Clark

About this episode

Will Tanner discusses the legacy of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, highlighting their contributions to exploration and science.

In this concluding video on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Will discusses what the legacy of these two great explorers is. He comments on their discovery that the Northwest Passage was a figment of the imagination, but how they nevertheless sparked a massive fur trade rush. He tells how Clark mapped the West with incredible accuracy and created a resource used for decades, how their careful cataloguing and preservation of natural specimens was an immense scientific accomplishment, and how they discovered and documented much of the West's incredible species and beauty. He also discusses the death of Meriwether Lewis, and how Lewis's incomprehensible failure to publish the Lewis and Clark Journals led to many of their greatest scientific accomplishments going unrecorded for almost a century.

People in this episode

Host: Will Tanner

Topics covered

• Lewis and Clark Expedition
• exploration legacy
• scientific accomplishments
• fur trade
• mapping the West
• natural specimens

Keywords

• Lewis and Clark
• expedition
• Northwest Passage
• fur trade
• scientific discovery
• mapping
• natural specimens

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Lewis and Clark Journals

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