Following the River: What the Landscape Revealed

Travel can offer us much more than a change of scenery. Whether we're exploring somewhere locally, traveling to another state, or venturing around the world, we experience different landscapes, histories and cultures firsthand.

Sometimes it isn't until we return home that the bigger picture begins to trickle in.

Something we witnessed, heard or experienced along the way begins mirroring aspects of our own relationship with life.

This particular journey through the Northwest was enlightening in a way I didn't expect.

When I think of Washington State, my mind immediately creates an image of lush greenery, cooler temperatures and plenty of water falling from the sky. Yet when we arrived in Spokane, the landscape told an entirely different story.

In summer, this part of Washington can feel surprisingly similar to the Phoenix desert, with temperatures reaching into the upper 90s and low 100s. The landscape was dry and arid, painted in deep golden-brown tones, although nighttime temperatures dropped considerably.

Already, the Northwest I thought I knew was showing me another side of itself.

From Spokane, we traveled by bus along two-lane roads and through small towns until reaching Clarkston and Hells Canyon, part of the deepest river gorge in North America along the borders of Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

The mountains surrounding us were formed from dramatic layers and columns of basalt volcanic rock, softened in places by golden-brown lichen as we traveled along the Snake River toward its meeting place with the Columbia River.

The landscape carried its own history—not written in a textbook, but in stone, water, plants and the shape of the land itself.

Passing Through

During the first part of our river journey, we traveled through four locks. Two we experienced during daylight; the other two we passed through while sleeping.

What fascinated me was that the gates didn't all open the same way.

At one lock, enormous doors separated from a center point and opened outward. At another, the water level lowered before the massive door rose above us, allowing us to travel underneath it.

Different passages. Different mechanisms. The same outcome: a way forward.

Looking back, there is something about those locks that stays with me.

Not every threshold in life opens the same way.

Sometimes the doorway opens directly in front of us.

Sometimes our level has to change first.

Along the river were small ports and communities that reminded me of towns from earlier periods of my life—places with a slower pace, fewer people and a feeling of being surrounded by the natural environment rather than separated from it.

There was something familiar inside something completely unfamiliar.

Following an Earlier Journey

Much of our route followed key locations associated with Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery, which traveled through the American West between 1804 and 1806.

During our days on the river, a historian and docent shared stories about what members of the expedition were encountering, documenting and building in the very places we were passing.

One person I found myself seeing differently was Sacagawea, who served as an important guide and interpreter while traveling with her French-Canadian husband and her infant son.

A woman. A mother. An interpreter and bridge between cultures—with a baby traveling through an enormous and largely unfamiliar landscape.

History became less like something that happened somewhere long ago and more like another layer of the landscape we were moving through.

And then there was Seaman

In the summer of 1803, Meriwether Lewis acquired a Newfoundland dog named Seaman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Seaman became a permanent member of the Corps of Discovery, traveling more than 8,000 miles and believed to have been the only animal to complete the entire expedition.

An inscription associated with his collar would later describe him as:

“The greatest traveler of my species.”

But Seaman wasn't simply a dog who happened to be along for the adventure.

He had roles.

He hunted and retrieved food, helped patrol camps, offered protection and provided companionship during an extraordinarily demanding journey. At one point, he was even taken by Native people who reportedly admired his size and intelligence before being returned to the expedition.

Perhaps his story stayed with me because I have spent so much of my own life observing the roles animals hold within our homes, relationships and journeys.

They aren't necessarily supporting characters in the human story.

Sometimes they are participants in the journey itself.

What We Bring Home

There was a great deal of history woven into this trip, along with experiences completely new to me—and plenty of ahas I don't remember finding in textbooks.

It caused me to look backward as much as outward: at the places I've lived, where I've worked, my business, relationships, the animals who have traveled portions of my life beside me, and the ways my awareness of myself continues to shift.

Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts of temporarily stepping beyond our familiar environments.

We discover where our assumptions don't match what is actually in front of us. We experience something firsthand. And then we return home carrying pieces of it that may take days, weeks or even longer to understand.

Some part of us is still traveling.

Certain landscapes, stories, animals and seemingly ordinary moments become another element of our map—not necessarily showing us exactly where to go next, but helping us recognize where we are now.

And sometimes, like traveling through a lock on a river, the next passage doesn't require us to force the door open.

The level shifts.

The gate opens.

And we continue forward.