Submitted photo notforsale

KNAPPTON COVE — Knappton Cove Heritage Center and the Pacific Northwest Living Historians will present a living history program on Saturday, July 8, and Sunday, July 9.

During this two-day event, costumed members of the historians group will demonstrate the weapons, tools and skills employed by the explorers of the epic Lewis and Clark expedition.

Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Capt. William Clark were sent by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory, and to seek the best route to the Pacific Ocean through what we now call the Pacific Northwest.

During their voyage of 1804 to 1806, they led the “Corps of Northwestern Discovery” overland from St. Louis, Missouri, to the mouth of the Columbia River, and back again. With no means for resupply, the Corps — a U.S. Army unit of 31 men, accompanied by Sacagawea and her infant child, Jean Baptiste — needed to use a diverse combination of skills, along with the right tools, in order to survive.

Dressed in clothing of the style and materials worn by the Corps voyagers in 1805, the interpreters will demonstrate and discuss many of those tools and skills, including loading and firing flintlock firearms; fire starting with flint and steel; camp cooking; making clothing from leather; making canoe paddles.

Visitors will also learn the history and stories of the Lewis and Clark expedition: the Native people who they met, the unfamiliar territory they traveled and mapped, and the strange new animals and plants they discovered.

Program times:

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday

The Knappton Cove Heritage Center is located on Washington State Route 401, along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, about 3 miles east of the north end of the Astoria-Megler bridge, and about 8 miles south of Naselle, Washington.

The museum inside the historic U.S. Quarantine Station building will be open 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (3 p.m. Sunday) during the event.

For more information and contact information, visitknapptoncoveheritagecenter.org.