Time travel

Historian John Boles ’65, the William Pettus Hobby Professor, reflects on his long experience of leading the Association of Rice Alumni’s Traveling Owls in the footsteps of explorers Lewis and Clark.

By JOHN BOLES ’65

About 20 years ago, Rose Sundin, who then managed travel for the Association of Rice Alumni, asked if I would be willing to accompany a Lewis and Clark trip up the Columbia River and offer lectures about the Corps of Discovery. I hesitated, because even though I had enjoyed lecturing on similar trips before, they had always been to the U.S. South. After all, I taught U.S. southern history.

Historian John Boles ’65, the William Pettus Hobby Professor, reflects on his long experience of leading the Association of Rice Alumni’s Traveling Owls in the footsteps of explorers Lewis and Clark. Photos by Tommy LaVergne

Then it occurred to me that the Lewis and Clark expedition was the brainchild of Thomas Jefferson and that both Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had been born in Virginia — in a way, their famous exploration of the West in 1804–1806 could be seen as a geographical extension of southern history. So, in the most fortuitous act of rationalization of my life, I agreed to go on the trip, developing a number of lectures built outward from Jefferson’s lifelong fascination with the West.

My goal would be to provide background on the rationale of their exploration, describe their interactions with Native Americans, discuss their scientific curiosity about dozens of plants and animals new to Europeans, and try to give a sense of how arduous and dangerous their experience was two centuries ago.

The result, over the next 19 years, has been a series of trips with different formats, each celebrating the most illustrious explorers in American history. That first trip was on a small boat from the Pacific Ocean up the Columbia River to the Snake River in Idaho. Then came two trips through Montana, featuring visits to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, and two days and nights on a historic, narrow-gauge train.

This story is featured in the fall 2015 issue of Rice Magazine. To read the rest of the story, visit https://ricemagazine.atavist.com/time-travel.