In the many published accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition, historians have tended to undervalue the explorers’ encounter with Columbia River country. Most narratives emphasize Lewis and Clark’s adventures through their journey to the Bitterroot Mountains but have said little about the rest of their travels west of there.River of Promise fills a significant gap in our understanding of Lewis and Clark’s legendary expedition.
Historian David L. Nicandri shifts the focus to an essential goal of the explorers: to discover the headwaters of the Columbia and a water route to the Pacific Ocean. He also restores William Clark in his role as the primary geographic problem-solver of the partnership. Most historians assume that Meriwether Lewis was a more distinguished scientist than Clark because of his formal training in Philadelphia and superior writing skills. Here we see Clark as Lewis’s equal as scientific geographer, not merely the practical manager of boats and personnel.
Nicandri places the legend of Sacagawea in clearer perspective by focusing instead on the contributions of often-overlooked Indian leaders in Columbia River country. He also offers many points of comparison to other explorers and a provocative analysis of Lewis’s suicide in 1809, arguing that it was not a sudden event but fruit of a seed planted much earlier, quite possibly in Columbia country.

River of Promise: Lewis and Clark on the Columbia

History

Nicandri, David L.

Americas

The Dakota Institute

The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness

Meriwether Lewis commanded the most important exploration mission in the early history of the United States. Clay S. Jenkinson takes a fresh look at Lewis, not to offer a paper cutout hero but to describe and explain a hyperserious young man of great complexity who found the wilderness of Upper Louisiana as exacting as it was exhilarating.
Jenkinson sees Lewis as a troubled soul before he left St. Charles, Missouri, in May 1804. His experiences in lands "upon which the foot of civilized man had never trodden" further fractured his sense of himself. His hiring William Clark as his "partner in discovery" was, Jenkinson shows, the most intelligent decision he ever made. When Clark was nearby, Lewis's leadership was stable and productive. When Clark was absent and thus unable to provide a calming influence on his mercurial friend, Lewis tended to get into trouble. Jenkinson argues that if Clark had been with Lewis on the Natchez Trace, the governor of Upper Louisiana would not have killed himself. Jenkinson sees Lewis's 1809 suicide not as an inexplicable mystery, but the culmination of a series of pressures that extend back to the expedition and perhaps even earlier.
The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness is a revision of an earlier book, greatly expanded with new scholarship and insights gained through Jenkinson's extensive participation in the Lewis and Clark Expedition Bicentennial. Jenkinson discusses Lewis's sense of humor, his oft-stated fear that the expedition he was leading might collapse, his self-conscious learnedness, and his inability to re-enter "polite society" after his return. The book attempts to reconstruct from Lewis's journal entries and letters his rich, troubled personality and his aspirations to heroism. When the American mythology surrounding him is removed and Lewis is allowed to reveal himself, he emerges as a fuller, more human, and endlessly fascinating explorer.

Biographies & Memoirs

Jenkinson, Clay S.

Historical

The human aspects of the famed explorer, in a revised and expanded biography Meriwether Lewis commanded the most important exploration mission in the early history of the United States. Clay S. Jenkinson takes a fresh look at Lewis, not to offer a paper cutout hero but to describe and explain a hyperserious young man of great complexity who found the wilderness of Upper Louisiana as exacting as it was exhilarating. Jenkinson sees Lewis as a troubled soul before he left St. Charles, Missouri, in May 1804. His experiences in lands "upon which the foot of civilized man had never trodden" further fractured his sense of himself. His hiring William Clark as his "partner in discovery" was, Jenkinson shows, the most intelligent decision he ever made. When Clark was nearby, Lewis's leadership was stable and productive. When Clark was absent and thus unable to provide a calming influence on his mercurial friend, Lewis tended to get into trouble. Jenkinson argues that if Clark had been with Lewis on the Natchez Trace, the governor of Upper Louisiana would not have killed himself. Jenkinson sees Lewis's 1809 suicide not as an inexplicable mystery, but the culmination of a series of pressures that extend back to the expedition and perhaps even earlier. The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness is a revision of an earlier book, greatly expanded with new scholarship and insights gained through Jenkinson's extensive participation in the Lewis and Clark Expedition Bicentennial. Jenkinson discusses Lewis's sense of humor, his oft-stated fear that the expedition he was leading might collapse, his self-conscious learnedness, and his inability to re-enter "polite society" after his return. The book attempts to reconstruct from Lewis's journal entries and letters his rich, troubled personality and his aspirations to heroism. When the American mythology surrounding him is removed and Lewis is allowed to reveal himself, he emerges as a fuller, more human, and endlessly fascinating explorer.

George "Bud" Sinner was the governor of North Dakota from 1984 to1992, one of the most difficult periods in North Dakota history. Sinner became governor during a time of crisis on the northern Great Plains: the traditional problems of outmigration and uncertain commodity prices were dramatically worsened by a protracted drought, weak tax revenues, high interest rates, and one of the greatest farm foreclosure crises in American history.Written in Sinner's warm, approachable style, his memoirs touch upon the serious, the hilarious, and the heartbreaking. This is the story of a Catholic farm boy who studied for the priesthood but discovered that his true vocation was public service. Turning Points exhibits Bud Sinner's characteristic outspokenness about life and power, friendship and faith, agriculture and community, public affairs and personal ethics.

Turning Points: A Memoir

Sinner, George A. "Bud"

Jansen, Bob

George "Bud" Sinner was the governor of North Dakota from 1984 to1992, one of the most difficult periods in North Dakota history. Sinner became governor during a time of crisis on the northern Great Plains: the traditional problems of outmigration and uncertain commodity prices were dramatically worsened by a protracted drought, weak tax revenues, high interest rates, and one of the greatest farm foreclosure crises in American history.
Written in Sinner's warm, approachable style, his memoirs touch upon the serious, the hilarious, and the heartbreaking. This is the story of a Catholic farm boy who studied for the priesthood but discovered that his true vocation was public service. Turning Points exhibits Bud Sinner's characteristic outspokenness about life and power, friendship and faith, agriculture and community, public affairs and personal ethics.

Mortal Stakes · Faint Thunder

Timothy Murphy is a major American poet who lives on the Great Plains. A fascinating and complicated man and a child of the northern prairie, he writes deceptively simple poetry. Murphy has been a grain and hog farmer and, like Wallace Stevens, an insurance salesman, but the twin joys of his life are poetry and hunting. This double book, Mortal Stakes and Faint Thunder, is the first of several volumes of his poetry to be published by the Dakota Institute Press. Murphy’s poetry explores faith, family, spirituality, death, farming, friendship, love, and sexuality, yet it is profoundly rooted in place—the Red River watershed in North Dakota and western Minnesota. He tries to make sense of the wide sweep of the northern plains, to explore how place shapes poetry and how poetry shapes one’s experience of place. Murphy is an unpretentious man with a fabulous poetic pedigree. He studied with Robert Penn Warren at Yale, who passed him on to Richard Wilbur with a note saying, “Because he’s the best man we’ve got.” Murphy likens his poetry to the work of Robert Frost, and, like Frost, he prefers to work in rhyme.

Literature & Fiction

Murphy, Timothy

Poetry

Theodore Roosevelt ventured into the American West to seek authentic frontier experience and the strenuous life. The New York aristocrat traveled to western Dakota Territory in 1883 to kill his first buffalo. He got his buffalo, but he also fell in love with the badlands of what is now North Dakota. On impulse, Roosevelt invested a significant portion of his wealth in two badlands ranches, and he spent the better part of 1883–87 ranching, hunting, serving as deputy sheriff, writing books, and attempting to become an authentic American cowboy. In North Dakota the New York dude became the Theodore Roosevelt who led a cowboy brigade of cavalrymen up Kettle and San Juan Hills in 1898 and then led the American people into the twentieth century as the twenty-sixth president of the United States. This book contains 70 stories, many set in Dakota Territory, about Roosevelt’s life as an adventurer, politician, and man of letters, lavishly illustrated with more than 100 photographs, some never previously published. Clay S. Jenkinson’s introduction assesses what Roosevelt learned from his sojourn in the West, including his commitment to conservation of America’s natural resources. With a foreword by best-selling biographer Douglas Brinkley, this book tells the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s life in his own words, carefully excerpted from his 1913 autobiography.

A Free and Hardy Life: Theodore Roosevelt’s Sojourn in the American West

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Hunter’s Log is Timothy Murphy’s long-awaited book of hunting poetry. With his faithful Labrador, Feeney, Murphy wanders in deep snow along the windbreaks of the Sheyenne and Red River valleys, reciting poetry and firing at the pheasants Feeney flushes. His poetry is deceptively simple, rhymed verse in the manner of Robert Frost. Murphy’s poetry is internationally acclaimed, yet he is not well known on the Great Plains—where his unique poetic vision was shaped. Trained by Robert Penn Warren and mentored by Richard Wilbur, Murphy has tuned his voice to the treeless windswept landscapes of the northern plains. His poetry explores the rural countryside of North Dakota. Heavily influenced by Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset’s Meditation on Hunting, Murphy sees hunting as a spiritual activity. There is nothing cloistered in his poetry. He tramps through the tall grass prairie of eastern Dakota and along the ridges and buttes that overlook the mighty Missouri, then cooks up what he kills in exquisite stews and ragouts. Timothy Murphy’s genius is to write poetry that is accessible to all, simultaneously simple and profound, and deeply imbued with the spirit of place.

Hunter’s Log

Hunter’s Log is Timothy Murphy’s long-awaited book of hunting poetry. With his faithful Labrador, Feeney, Murphy wanders in deep snow along the windbreaks of the Sheyenne and Red River valleys, reciting poetry and firing at the pheasants Feeney flushes. His poetry is deceptively simple, rhymed verse in the manner of Robert Frost. Murphy’s poetry is internationally acclaimed, yet he is not well known on the Great Plains—where his unique poetic vision was shaped. Trained by Robert Penn Warren and mentored by Richard Wilbur, Murphy has tuned his voice to the treeless windswept landscapes of the northern plains. His poetry explores the rural countryside of North Dakota. Heavily influenced by Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset’s Meditation on Hunting, Murphy sees hunting as a spiritual activity. There is nothing cloistered in his poetry. He tramps through the tall grass prairie of eastern Dakota and along the ridges and buttes that overlook the mighty Missouri, then cooks up what he kills in exquisite stews and ragouts. Timothy Murphy’s genius is to write poetry that is accessible to all, simultaneously simple and profound, and deeply imbued with the spirit of place.

Hunter's Log

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the The Dakota Institute publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by The Dakota Institute

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the The Dakota Institute publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

River of Promise: Lewis and Clark on the Columbia

The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness

The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness

Turning Points: A Memoir

Turning Points: A Memoir

Mortal Stakes · Faint Thunder

Mortal Stakes · Faint Thunder

A Free and Hardy Life: Theodore Roosevelt’s Sojourn in the American West

Hunter’s Log

Hunter's Log