to make its winter camp on the south side of the Columbia, where elk were more plentiful, near what is now Astoria, at a place they named Fort Clatsop.
The Corps of Discovery scheme was inspired by Alexander Mackenzie, who trekked across Canada and reached the Pacific Ocean near Bella Coola, in what is now British Columbia, in 1793. Jefferson read Mackenzie’s account of his trip avidly, passed the book on to Meriwether Lewis, who at the time was his personal secretary, and began planning an American version of it, with Lewis in charge. Mackenzie even carved his name and the date of his arrival—not in a tree, but on a rock. I like the idea that the Lewis and Clark journey, one of the defining myths of American history, had its origins in a Canadian expedition that few in Canada today remember.
Standing on the slippery platform of the Twilight Creek Eagle Sanctuary, at twilight, looking down at the great river where the expedition camped, I understand what it is that has fixed this journey so securely in the American imagination. We have a river, we have a small band of purposeful men floating down it, and we have an ocean. What could be more American than that? It is Apocalypse Now. It is Huckleberry Finn. Clark even had his single-named slave, York, with him. But unlike Huck’s companion Jim, York isn’t a runaway. In Huckleberry Finn, Jim is the one character for whom freedom meant something tangible; his eventual emancipation elevates the novel to the status of myth.
In the Lewis and Clark story, the loyal and obedient York is not escaping from anything. In fact, he is scarcely visible. He is given no voice other than that of an animal when he is amusing some Indian children and is mentioned barely a dozen times in the three years covered by the narrative, and then only matter-of-factly, as in “set out at 7 o’clock in a Canoo with Cap Lewis my servant and one man . . .”
Because York is denied any role other than that of a slave, the Lewis and Clark expedition, which was essentially a scientific and commercial enterprise, becomes a different kind of epic journey, one that also delineates and defines the American spirit. If Huck and Jim represent the fictional way Americans would like to see themselves—as simple, honest, and freedom-loving adventurers—then Lewis and Clark reveal the true nonfictional nature of their national consciousness: entrepreneurial and freedom-loving, except when it came to Manifest Destiny and slavery—in other words, the rights of others. When the expedition was over, York asked Clark for his freedom. Clark refused.
The setting sun is coming from the west, casting long shadows over the Seal Islands. I realize that this is my first real view of the Columbia River. And that we have come here by land from Canada, after crossing the continent; in a sense, we have combined the journeys of Mackenzie and Lewis and Clark. I look around; there are several sizable trees, dripping with rain but suitable for carving. Unfortunately, I have left my Swiss Army knife at home; I didn’t want to worry about it as I crossed the border.
MUTELY we drive through the gathering night toward the end of our second day on the road. The radio is off and Wayne is somewhere in his Lewis and Clark reverie, but even so, the air is filled with sound: tires on asphalt, wipers on glass, the bellow of a ship’s horn on the river below, the wigwag of the railway track we just crossed.
True silence—natural quiet—is a rare thing. Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist across the river in Washington State, has spent most of a lifetime searching for places where the sounds of nature might be recorded without man-made interruption. There aren’t many left. He’s made a few MP3 albums of the sounds of silence: “Forest Rain,” “Spring Leaves,” “Old Growth.” I like the idea of listening to a forest growing.
On Earth Day 2005, Hempton decided to defend a bit of wilderness from all human-caused noise intrusion. His “one square inch of silence” is in the Hoh Rain Forest of Olympic National Park, 678 feet above sea level and a two-hour hike in from the nearest trail, the exact location marked by a small red stone placed on top of a moss-covered log at 47° 51.959’ N, 123° 52.221’ W. He even convinced airlines to reroute their flight paths around the park.
Hempton defines silence as “the total absence of all sound. But because the whole universe is vibrating, there is no true silence— though silence does exist in the mind as a psychological state, as a concept.”
Wayne and I are silent, but it isn’t the silence of solitude. Even without speaking, he is part of my mental space. I wonder what he’s thinking, if maybe I should say something funny or smart. What kind of mood is he in? Should I bring up Christmas, how much I miss the kids? Or the novel that I so much want him to read. Maybe I should find something in the brochures to talk about, try to connect us with the river that is slipping by outside.
And what is Wayne thinking? Is he sitting in his silence the same way I sit in mine?
Probably not. Researchers at the University of California recently found that the amygdala, that almond-shaped structure nestled on either side of the brain, behaves differently in men and women at rest. When men are relaxed and quiet, the right amygdala is the more active one, while in women, it’s the left. What’s really interesting is the region of brain that the amygdala is talking to. In men, it’s communicating with the visual cortex and the striatum, which controls vision and motor actions. In women, it’s connecting to the insular cortex and the hypothalamus—the interior landscape. I’m thinking about our relationship; Wayne’s wondering where he can pull over to pee.
“In human intercourse the tragedy begins not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood,” Thoreau wrote. It’s hard to believe he was never married.
After three months working alone on my book, I don’t find it easy being trapped in this little Toyota with another person, even one I love more than I ever thought possible. How can I think in this Echo? Wayne won’t be quiet for long. He has a penchant for golden oldies: he worked as a DJ in high school and knows all the words to all the songs up to about 1968. He has quite a good tenor, of the Gerry and the Pacemakers variety, so I don’t mind sitting through endless verses of “The Sound of Silence,” “Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa,” and “When I’m Sixty-Four.” But driving through this blackness, I long for the Blues. Maybe a little Dr. John crooning “Such a Night,” or Sippie Wallace doing “Suitcase Blues,” Sister Rosetta Tharpe belting out “Didn’t It Rain,” or B.B. King. I can almost hear him . . . Gonna roam this mean ol’ highway until the break of day.
It’s not really a mean ol’ highway. In fact, there’s something about driving through the gathering nightfall in the rain that feels almost cozy. Not fearsome or alien, though I can see how some might see it that way. The damp darkness outside our windows is impenetrable; the headlights obliterate the landscape, force our eyes down wavering tunnels spiked with glinting needles of rain. There’s a rhythm to the slap of the wipers that lets me sink into myself, just as Wayne has sunk into some contemplative place of his own. We are making this journey together, but separately, too.
WE’VE been vagabonding in America, meandering the day away, eating in the car, drinking water from our metal bottles. We’re more than ready for dinner. We arrive in Astoria just as the street lights are making pale, yellow smudges in the misty rain, but even so the streets look dark and deserted. Few of the storefronts are lit up, and our hopes of finding a quiet, excellent restaurant fade.
The main thoroughfare, Commercial Street, which we’re on, is a miracle of Victorian bakeshops, olde innes, souvenir and gifte shoppes, and the like. The Liberty Theater, built in 1925 and recently featured on HGTV’s Restore America television series as one of its twelve American Treasures, appears to be dark tonight, and is likely to stay dark until spring. Ah,
