In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson chose Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition to the Northwest "to explore the Missouri River and such principal streams of it as by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean."

Lewis chose his friend William Clark to share command of this fantastic expedition. The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery set off from a camp on the Mississippi upstream from St. Louis on May 14, 1804. It took 28 months for the explorers to navigate uncharted rivers and forge a wilderness journey to the Pacific Ocean.

President Wayne Clough and his wife, Anne, joined a group of Georgia Tech alumni in October 2003 aboard the Sea Lion for a seven-day voyage through history in the wake of Lewis and Clark. Clough documented the trip in a journal that is excerpted here.

©2004 Georgia Tech Alumni Association