The Knappton Cove Heritage Center and the Pacific Northwest Living Historians will present a family friendly living history program July 12 and July 13.

During this two-day encampment, costumed members of the historians group will demonstrate the tools and skills employed by the explorers of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Activities run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 12 and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 13.

The program is free, although donations are welcome.

Capts. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were sent by 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 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 voyagers of the Corps in 1805, interpreters will demonstrate and discuss many of those tools and skills.

These include safety in handling flintlock firearms, starting a fire with flint and steel, making clothing from leather, carving canoe paddles, and trading for supplies.

Visitors will hear stories about the Lewis and Clark expedition plus the native people who they met, the unfamiliar territory they traveled and mapped and the “new” animals and plants they discovered.

At 2 p.m. July 12 there will be a brief annual meeting and lemonade social. Those attending may talk with board members about the latest projects.

The Knappton Cove Heritage Center is located on Washington State Route 401, along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, about three miles east of the north end of the Astoria Bridge. The U.S. Quarantine Hospital Museum will be open from 1p.m. to 4 p.m. both days.

For more information, visit www.knapptoncoveheritagecenter.org or email Nancy Anderson at knapptoncove@gmail.com.

A Facebook event link is at www.facebook.com/share/1Aiv4grJsh/

Details at https://www.facebook.com/KnapptonCoveHeritageCenter