Tours offer Lewis, Clark adventures

Who would’ve thought a guy named Meriwether could end up this popular? But this fall, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are all the rage. And if you’ve got the fever, plenty of programs are prepared to deliver the cure.

Educational Discovery Tours and the nonprofit Interhostel – founded in 1980 by the University of New Hampshire – have teamed up to organize a seven-day tour for folks 50 or older. The first run starts Oct. 10 and winds up Oct. 16; a second is slated for the spring.

You’ll establish your base camp at the Heathman Lodge in Vancouver, Wash., and venture forth to historically or geologically significant sites associated with Lewis and Clark’s journey through the Columbia River Gorge.

You’ll visit Multnomah Falls, at 620 feet the second highest year-around cataract in the country; Mount St. Helens; Fort Clatsop, where the expedition spent the 1805-06 winter; the Columbia River Maritime Museum and Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center; Maryhill Art Museum; Fort Vancouver, center of Hudson’s Bay fur trading empire; Cape Disappointment; the North Head Lighthouse on the Oregon coast; the town of Astoria, location of John Jacob Astor’s fur trading company; and Portland’s Pioneer Square, apparently where Lewis and Clark did all their shopping.

Along the way, speakers and local experts will provide insight and context.

The price for the entire adventure – accommodations, meals, ground transportation, admissions, activities, excursions, lectures and presentations, gratuities and a full-time local program coordinator – comes to $1,285 per person based on double occupancy.

Learn more at Interhostel (800-733-9753, www.learn.unh.edu/interhostel) or Educational Discovery Tours (800-544-4723, www.educational discoverytours.com).

Your Lewis and Clark education doesn’t have to stop there. The Pacific County Friends of Lewis & Clark has scheduled a cultural weekend on the Long Beach Peninsula, Nov. 12-14.

“Ocian in View” (Clark had his own way about spelling) marks the start of the one-year countdown to a national bicentennial observation of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

The event, funded in part by a grant from Humanities Washington, a statewide nonprofit organization supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, includes two evenings of lectures and a number of activities.

On Friday night, Joe Burnett, assistant curator for the condor program at the Oregon Zoo, delivers “The California Condor – From Near Extinction to Breeding in the Wild – a Legacy of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.” William Clark chronicled the first scientific record of a condor, this particular one with a 91/2-foot wingspan.

By 1982, only 24 birds were known to exist. Today, thanks to a dedicated captive breeding effort, the condor may soon be reintroduced to the Columbia River region.

On Saturday, author Jim Thom tells the story of George Drouillard, a linguist and tracker on the expedition. Half-Shawnee, half-French, Drouillard acted as a diplomat with native tribes. Roger Wendlick, collector in residence at Lewis & Clark College, appears in costume as Drouillard during the presentation.

The weekend also includes a seafood dinner prepared by and benefiting the Chinook tribe, charter boat excursions along the lower Columbia, narrated bus tours of expedition campsites, an open house at the newly expanded Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment State Park, and lots more.

Call (360) 642-2805 for the complete download.

Finally, Cruise West will retrace the explorers’ final leg along the Snake and Columbia rivers with a seven-night “River Voyage of Discovery.” Three ships sail round-trip from Portland through Oct. 22.

The trip covers more than 1,000 miles, stopping at Fort Clatsop National Historic Park, the Whitman Mission and Fort Walla Walla. You’ll also take a jetboat into Hells Canyon, tour Bonneville Dam and visit the Columbia River Gorge Discovery Center, Maryhill Museum and Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

Cruise West’s crafts – Spirit of Alaska, Spirit of Discovery and Spirit of ‘98 – accommodate 78 to 96 passengers each. Experts in regional history, cultures, wildlife, ecology and geology present lectures on board.

Make reservations or request additional information at 800.888.9378 or www.cruisewest.com.

Let it fly

The 26th annual Lincoln City (Ore.) Fall International Kite Festival lifts off Oct. 8 and continues through the weekend. See what experts from Australian, New Zealand, Canada and across the U.S. can do, and watch the Sixth Sense Sport Kite team from Washington demonstrate synchronized flying.

The festival also features a fighter kite battle, kite ballets, flying lessons and a stuffed animal drop. Each day starts out with a mass ascension, and if your flyer is red, white and blue, you’ll earn yourself a prize.

Get out of the wind at the Tanger Outlet Center, site of an exhibit of Japanese Roccacu kites, or take a lesson on the art of flying indoors without a breeze.

For a complete schedule of activities, call (800) 452-2151 or visit www.oregoncoast.com.

Berry good time

Head north from the kite festival to the Washington coast, and meet Barry Cranberry.

Mr. Cranberry is the irresistibly cute mascot of the 2004 Cranberry Harvest Festival in Grayland on Oct. 9-10.

The Cranberry Coast, on the south side of Grays Harbor, stretches along 18 miles of seashore marked with cranberry bogs started by Finnish farmers nearly 150 years ago.

Begin your introduction to the area with a quick course in cranberries at the Furford Cranberry Museum. Named after the fellow responsible for the Furford Picker Pruner, still in use for dry harvest today, the museum lays forth an array of cranberry contraptions.

Then visit the cranberry marketplace, where you can pick up all the cranberry fudge you’d care to enjoy. There’s also cranberry pizza, vinegar, sausage, mustard, cookie and muffin mixes, soaps, lotions, and no doubt more.

The Firefly Parade, Cranberry Cook-Off, Big Berry Contest, Cranberry Harvest Photo Contest, quilt show, games, live entertainment and a cranberry pancake breakfast round out the revelry.

Have a look at Barry Cranberry and learn more about his festival at www.2thebeach.org, or call (800) 473-6018.

Regional events

• Montana Festival of the Book, Sept. 30-Oct. 2, Missoula. Seventy of the region’s writers gather in a variety of readings, panels, exhibits, demonstrations, book signings and other activities. (406-243-6022/ www.bookfest-mt.org)

• Issaquah Salmon Days, Oct. 2-3, Issaquah, Wash. Celebrate the return of spawning salmon with salmon exhibits, arts and crafts, a fun run, pony rides, food booths, a parade, and more. (206-270-2532/ www.salmondays.org)