Lewis and Clark in the Tri-Cities: Three Days Where the Rivers Meet

Updated October 2026.

On October 16, 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition came down the Snake River and reached the Columbia, at the spot where Pasco sits today. They had been traveling for more than a year. They stayed two nights at the meeting of the rivers, and what they wrote there is some of the most vivid writing in their journals: singing and drums around the camp, a river so clear you could see salmon twenty feet down, and more fish than Clark could find words for.

Here is what happened over those three days, and where you can stand in their footsteps now.

Why They Were Here

In 1803 the United States bought the Louisiana Territory from France, and President Thomas Jefferson wanted to know what he had bought and what lay beyond it. He chose Meriwether Lewis, his personal secretary, to lead an expedition to the Pacific. Lewis asked his friend William Clark to share the command.

Jefferson’s instructions were broad. Find a water route across the continent. Meet the Native nations along the way. Write everything down: the plants, the animals, the rivers, the weather. By the time the party reached what is now Washington, it numbered 33 people, including Sacagawea, the Lemhi Shoshone woman who traveled with her infant son, and York, an enslaved man owned by Clark.

October 16: Arriving at the Forks

The party had hurried down the Clearwater and then the Snake, which Clark called Lewis’s River. Late in the day they reached the point where it pours into the Columbia and made camp just above it.

They were not alone. The confluence was a gathering place for the Yakama and Wanapum peoples, with the Walla Walla, Umatilla and Palouse nearby. That evening about 200 men came down from a village upstream, singing and beating drums, and formed a half circle around the camp. Clark shared a smoke and handed out gifts, including a medal for the principal chief. People brought the hungry travelers fresh salmon and dried horse meat, and the expedition bought dogs to eat, which by then was a regular part of their diet.

October 17: Clark Paddles Upriver

The next afternoon Clark took two men in a small canoe and went about ten miles up the Columbia, toward what is now Richland. He passed fishing camps and long lodges made of woven mats, some as long as 60 feet, with salmon drying on every side.

It was spawning season, and the river was full of fish. Clark wrote that the water was so clear he could see salmon fifteen to twenty feet down, and that “the number of dead Salmon on the Shores & floating in the river is incrediable to Say.” (You can read his full entry for the day in the expedition journals.)

At one lodge he was served salmon boiled with hot stones dropped into the pot. The people there told him the Yakima River came in about eight miles farther on. It was getting late, so he turned the canoe around and reached camp after dark. Of the people he met that day, he wrote that they “appears to live in a State of comparitive happiness.”

October 18: Back on the River

Before leaving, the captains held a council, handed out peace medals, and bought forty more dogs. One chief sketched the rivers and the nations upstream for them, a map drawn for strangers passing through. Clark measured the two rivers, and found the Columbia close to twice as wide as the Snake.

They pushed off in the afternoon and made about 21 miles downstream before camping on a bank where the only firewood was dry willow. That day Clark noted “a mountain bearing S. W. conocal form Covered with Snow.” Historians think it was Mount Hood.

Where to Stand in Their Footsteps Today

Sacajawea Historical State Park, Pasco. The park sits on the point where the expedition camped. The interpretive center covers the journey, Sacagawea’s life and Native tool making, and it is open Wednesday through Sunday, April through October; in winter it opens by appointment. The park itself closes for the season from November 1 to March 31. A Discover Pass is required to park.

The Story Circles. In the trees where the two rivers meet, the artist Maya Lin placed seven circles etched with words from tribal stories, the expedition journals and the natural history of the place, with help from the Yakama elder and Sahaptin speaker Virginia Beavert. They were dedicated in 2010 as part of the Confluence Project, and they are the best reason to walk to the very tip of the point.

The Sacagawea Heritage Trail. A 23 mile paved trail that loops along the Columbia through Pasco, Richland and Kennewick, starting at the state park. It is flat, open and lined with interpretive signs, so you can cover a stretch of the same river Clark paddled on foot or by bike.

The Museum at Keewaydin, Kennewick. The local history museum for east Benton County, with Native heritage and early settlement exhibits and preserved Columbia River petroglyphs. Check its hours before you go.

A note on spelling: the state park uses the older spelling, Sacajawea. The trail and most historians today use Sacagawea.

Go in the fall if you can. Stand at the point in October, with the light low over the water, and it is easy to picture the canoes coming down the Snake, and a camp full of strangers listening to drums from upriver.