Canoe Camp on the Clearwater: Lewis and Clark's Pines and the Pine Beetle

The red trees in this forest were killed by mountain pine beetles, no longer kept in check by cold winters. U.S. Forest Service.

Canoes of ponderosa pine

After their long crossing of the mountains, Lewis and Clark reached this site on the Clearwater River on September 26, 1805, eager to travel by water again. With help from local Nez Perce people, they spent eleven days building five dugout canoes from large ponderosa pine logs. Lewis also took a ponderosa specimen from here for his plant collection.

The pines today

Forest trees face climate-related threats — drought, fire, insects and disease. The pines that carried the expedition downriver toward the coast are now being hit by growing numbers of mountain pine beetles. Across the western United States, winter temperatures have risen about 7°F since 1960, and recent winter lows have not been cold enough to thin the beetles, so beetle-killed trees are increasing.

More: the National Park Service's page on climate change along the Lewis and Clark Trail.

Sources

Based on "Clearwater Canoe Camp," Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. It draws on the Park Service's "Canoe Camp" page, the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation's Discover Lewis & Clark, and studies by Aaron S. Weed and others (2015) and Michelle C. Agne and others (2018).