Throughout the Bicentennial, re-enactors associated with the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, Missouri, retraced the route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. On April 2, 1806, William Clark wrote: "I entered this river which the nativs had informed us of, Called Mult no mah [Willamette] River so called by the nativs from a Nation who reside on Wappato [Sauvie] Island a little below the enterance of this river.... Soon after I arived at this river an old man passed down of the Clark a'mos [Clackamas] Nation who are noumerous and reside on a branch of this river which receives it's waters from Mt. Jefferson which is emensely high and discharges itself into this river one day and a half up, this distance I State at 40 Miles. This nation inhabits 11 Villages." On April 2, 2006, a group of men associated with the Discovery Expedition — (above, from left) Josh Loftis, Roger Wendlick, Darrell Millner, David Cain, Peyton "Bud" Clark, Derrick Biddle, Sid Stoffels, and Richard Brumley — rowed up the Willamette River to St. Johns.

The Confluence Project, sponsored by tribes and civic groups from Oregon and Washington, hired artist Maya Lin to create seven art installations to commemorate the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The first installation, a sculpture of a fish-cleaning table inscribed with a Chinook origin story (left), is at Cape Disappointment State Park on Baker Bay. The many trails that are part of the installation include a boardwalk to Waikiki Beach inscribed with texts from the Journals of Lewis and Clark. On the ocean side of Baker Bay, a cedar circle evokes the seven directions of Native American tradition — north, south, east, west, up, down, and in.

In August 2005, the Oregon and Washington chapters of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation hosted the organization's 37th annual meeting. Over five hundred Foundation members from across the United States met at Lewis & Clark College in Portland and at several Expedition sites in Oregon and Washington. For entertainment one evening, breakdancer Alex Garibay (below) performed an interpretive dance based loosely on stories told about the dancing of François Rivet, a boatman with the Corps of Discovery. Many of the founders of the LCTHF are from Oregon and Washington. The Foundation has played an important role over the last forty years in shaping public interest in Lewis and Clark. It obtained National Park Service trail status for the route of the Expedition, sponsored the new edition of the Lewis and Clark Journals by Gary Moulton, and were responsible for many books that stimulated curiosity about the Expedition.

One of the first events of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial in Oregon was the Oregon Children's Theater production of Sacagawea, by Eric Coble, in January 2003 (right). The one-hour play, with music by the Oregon Trail Band, told the story of Sacagawea (performed by Chenoa Turia Yoshi Egawa), shown with her father, Hidatsa Man (portrayed by Cecil Cheekaher). Other artistic portrayals of the Lewis and Clark story included BlingLab's hand-constructed, thrift-show castoff puppet show, The Untold Misadventures of Lewis & Clark in 2006, and Kevin Walczyk's symphony "Corps of Discovery" performed by the Oregon Symphony in 2005.

In 2005, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community hosted a dedication of the Nichaqwli Village site at Blue Lake Park near Troutdale. Clifton Bruno (above), shown here preparing to roast salmon, was one of many tribal members who provided demonstrations of traditional arts and practices at the event.

The Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, located on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton, helped raise awareness of the history and culture of the native peoples who Lewis and Clark encountered during the Expedition. At Naamí Níshaycht, the Institute's living culture village (left), thousands of tourists learned how tribal members still practice ancient traditions, such as basket weaving, food gathering, salmon drying, and hide tanning.

Lewis and Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition, organized by the Missouri Historical Society, opened at the Oregon Historical Society with a performance by the Quartz Creek Drum and Dance Group from the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community (below). Hundreds of artifacts — the Journals of Lewis and Clark, letters from Expedition members, plant specimens collected during the Expedition, a Mandan winter count, a Klickitat basket, a carved Chinook comb — drew thousands of visitors into the story of the encounter between native peoples and the Corps of Discovery. Oregonians learned about the Expedition from other exhibits as well, including The Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition at Lewis & Clark College (right); Lewis and Clark Cargo at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center; Exploring the Far West, 1806–2006 at the High Desert Museum; A Fair to Remember: The 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition at the Oregon Historical Society; They Still Speak to Us and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow at the Warm Springs Museum; Native American Villages and Corps of Discovery at Portland International Airport; and From Lewis and Clark to the Treaty Council at Tamástslikt Cultural Institute.

When Lewis and Clark visited Cathlapotle in 1806, they encountered fourteen plankhouses and an estimated nine hundred people. In March 2005 the Chinook Nation, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, opened a Chinookan-style cedar plankhouse on the site of a Chinook village that Lewis and Clark visited in 1806. Situated on the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, Cathlapotle is one of the few significant, undisturbed archaeological sites on the lower Columbia River. Kenneth Ames (above), professor of Anthropology at Portland State University, is one of the lead researchers of Cathlapotle site.

Two powerboards (left), designed by Tony Johnson of the Chinook Tribe and carved by Johnson and Adam MacIssac of La Center, Washington, depict the Cathlapotle plankhouse headman and his parents.