Over the years in my travels to the USA I've become increasingly interested in American history both of the european spread across the continent and the Native American Indians. After my treat of a few days earlier at the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument, today was to be a Lewis and Clark day.

Great Falls is named for the waterfalls in the mighty Missouri river. Lewis and Clark encountered these falls as they paddled upriver searching for a water route to the Pacific. Unfortunately you cannot see the river as they did because dams have been built above most of the falls to divert water to make electricity (in fact Great Falls is also known as 'The Electric City' because of its generating capacity). Anyhow, you can see enough of the falls which are set in a steep sided gorge to realise how they would stop an expedition in canoes in its tracks so to speak. In fact the expedition had to portage the canoes around the five sets of falls taking around a month to do so.

We visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at the northern edge of the town and greatly enjoyed it. The exhibits and film show were excellent and down by the side of the river we saw a demonstration of how to erect a Teepee and how to start a fire using flint and tinder. This last one was a big hit with my two boys and we purchased an iron spark maker along with piece of flint to bring home. The centre piece exhibit in the museum is a full sized mock up of one of the canoes the Lewis and Clark expedition had to portage around the falls. When you stand close to this, the enormity of the physical challenge they had is made very real.