{"id":21197,"date":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/1999\/10\/01\/leading-into-unkown\/"},"modified":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1999-10-01T00:00:00","slug":"leading-into-unkown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/leading-into-unkown\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading Into the Unkown"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 7th, 1805<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large perogues. This little\n fleet altho’ not quite so rispectable as those of Columbus or Capt.\n Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famed\n adventurers ever beheld theirs; and I dare say with quite as much anxiety\n for their safety and preservation. we were now about to penetrate a country\n at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civillized man\n had never trodden; the good or evil it had in store for us was the experiment\n yet to determine, and these little vessels contained every article by which\n we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. When the immagination is\n suffered to wander into futurity, the picture which now presented itself\n to me was a most pleasing one.<\/p>\n

—Meriwether Lewis<\/em><\/p>\n\n

W<\/strong>here the map ended, the real adventure began.<\/p>\n\n

A year had passed since Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their band of\n27 explorers left St. Louis. Now, 1,609 miles up the Missouri River in search\nof a water route across the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean,\nthe map ended. Beyond their winter headquarters among Indian villages in\nwhat is now North Dakota no white man had ventured and returned.<\/p>\n\n

On the eastern side of the mountains, British traders had contacted tribes\nat the northernmost point yet charted on the Missouri. On the western side,\nAmerican Robert Gray had mapped the mouth of the Columbia River barely ten\nyears earlier. But those were the only points on the map. Between lay the\nbeckoning unknown.<\/p>\n\n

Rumors of what the expedition would find abounded: volcanoes, wooly mammoths,\nblue-eyed Indians who spoke Welsh, the lost tribes of Israel, and a navigable\nwaterway across this vast, uncharted territory that would open trade to Asia\nand make the nation that secured it great and wealthy. The stories mostly\ncame from trappers who had heard tales from Indians.<\/p>\n\n

For years Thomas Jefferson had been fascinated by the potential discoveries\nof animal and plant life in the region. Now as president of the United States,\nhe wanted to seize the opportunity. Jefferson envisioned a single nation\nextending from ocean to ocean, although at the time of his presidency, two\nof every three citizens lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n

As his secretary, Lewis shared the vision. Within a year of his commission\nby Jefferson, he set out. Paired with Clark, a frontiersman and commander\nin every way Lewis’s equal, the two names are now synonymous with leadership\nand discovery.<\/p>\n\n

Lewis and Clark’s journey off the map offers valuable insight to\ncontemporary leaders rowing into their own unknown.<\/p>\n\n

Discovery 1: When you plan for the unknown<\/strong>\nMeriwether Lewis didn’t have much to go on—his instructions from the\npresident, a small stipend from Congress, and the promise of reward if he\nsucceeded.<\/p>\n\n

As the son of a Virginia planter, Lewis had a spotty education. He knew little\nof botany and zoology, which he would need to document his findings in nature,\neven less of astronomy he would use to plot his course and cartography needed\nto map it. His writing skills, critical for journaling, were abysmal. He\nfrequently misspelled the names of his own brother and sister.<\/p>\n\n

Under Jefferson’s direction, Lewis pursued the needed skills. The president\nwanted an accurate picture of the massive land purchase he had negotiated\nwith France. Lewis took the mandate seriously. He studied with the experts\nand quickly mastered the sciences. His first purchases for the expedition\nincluded compasses, quadrants, a telescope, and a chronometer for measuring\nlongitude and latitude.<\/p>\n\n

More important, Jefferson wanted Lewis and the team to come back alive. Lewis\nstocked guns and ammunition, clothing, and a vile beef paste called “portable\nsoup.” Consulting with the leading physician of his day, Dr. Benjamin Rush,\nLewis catalogued common illnesses and their treatments. Rush prescribed\nconcoctions of all kinds. His specialty was a purgative guaranteed to work\nquickly and completely, “Rush’s Thunderbolt.” Lewis bought 600 tablets.<\/p>\n\n

Jefferson wanted to establish diplomatic relations with the Indians along\nhis new trade corridor. Lewis purchased items to give to the native\npeoples—mirrors, needles, kettles, medals, ribbon, tobacco, tomahawks, and\nface paint.<\/p>\n\n

He carried everything his crew would need to survive for two years. Lewis\ndoubled the size of his crew and stock between inception and launch. His\nplan was constantly changing. Any unforeseen discovery around the river’s\nbend could render his plans useless. Still, he planned. Relying more on\nencyclopedia than crystal ball, Lewis discerned the future by distilling\nthe present. His preparations demonstrate that all we really foresee about\ntomorrow is what we understand about today. Lewis’s planning process\nreflects educated guesswork. That’s the best any plan is.<\/p>\n\n

While the army shipped his 3,500-pound cargo to St. Louis, Lewis left for\nhis rendezvous with Clark.<\/p>\n\n

Discovery 2: When you can’t do it alone<\/strong>\nOne of Lewis’s first letters upon receiving his commission was to his\nold friend. The men had served in the army together. Clark, four years older\nat 33, was the commanding officer.<\/p>\n\n

“This is an undertaking fraited with many difeculties,” Lewis wrote, “but\nMy friend I do assure you that no man lives with whome I would perfur to\nundertake Such a Trip &c. as yourself.”<\/p>\n\n

Clark knew Lewis better than anyone, except perhaps Jefferson. He knew the\nyounger man’s intelligence and leadership abilities. He also remembered\nLewis’s episodic melancholy, which Jefferson described as “depressions\nof the mind.” Subsequent observers have assessed it as manic depression.<\/p>\n\n

To their teaming Clark brought an excellent rapport with soldiers, experience\non the frontier, and marksmanship credited in Lewis’s journals for feeding\nthe troop on many occasions. His older brother, Revolutionary War general\nGeorge Rogers Clark, had turned down an offer by Jefferson to lead such an\nexpedition ten years earlier. William Clark eagerly accepted. “My friend,”\nhe wrote to Lewis, “I join you with hand & Heart.”<\/p>\n\n

Lewis offered Clark co-captainship. The army refused his plan to share command.\nWhen the commission arrived, it read “Lieutenant Clark.” Lewis never told\nthe crew. His friend was always “Captain Clark,” his equal in decision-making\nand equally to be obeyed. Theirs was an unusual command, but it worked.<\/p>\n\n

Lewis willingly shared leadership with someone he knew would go with him\nto a place he could not go alone.<\/p>\n\n

While Lewis finished his studies and his acquisitions, Clark began scouting\nfor crew. Most were soldiers. “Stout, likely fellows,” he called them. Clark\nturned down planters’ sons and city boys. He wrote to Lewis that “a\njudicious choice of our party is of the greatest importance to the success\nof this vast enterprise.” The two men agreed on the candidates, taking no\none unless he satisfied both leaders.<\/p>\n\n

A swearing-in ceremony was held before Clark’s famous brother, and the\nCorps of Discovery, as Jefferson called it, was born.<\/p>\n\n

The captains set out with 22 men, three sergeants, one hunter-trapper skilled\nin several languages, Clark’s slave and lifelong companion York, and\nLewis’s Newfoundland dog Seaman.<\/p>\n\n

Turning this ragtag assemblage into focused, purposeful explorers was not\neasy. An undisciplined lot, more than one man talked back to officers, two\nwere absent without leave, and another deserted. Two broke into the whiskey\nsupply. One was charged with sleeping on guard duty, a crime which could\nhave cost the boatsmen their lives if Indians had attacked.<\/p>\n\n

There were five courts martial that first summer, usually conducted by a\nsergeant and several crewmen. The captains heard only the most serious cases.\nThose found guilty received lashes. The deserter was whipped with willow\nswitches and musket ramrods, 500 lashes, and discharged. By fall of 1804,\nno more serious infractions were reported.<\/p>\n\n

Over the months these fractious crewmen became an efficient, cooperative\nunit.<\/p>\n\n

But the team wasn’t complete until they met the Bird Woman.<\/p>\n\n

Discovery 3: When you meet strange tribes in strange lands<\/strong>\n“Endeavor to make yourself acquainted,” Jefferson instructed Lewis of his\nencounters with native tribes, “as far as a diligent pursuit of your journey\nwill allow.” Jefferson wanted to know everything about these peoples: hunting\nand farming skills, mating habits and moral codes, suitability as a trade\nmarket, and their tendencies toward peace or war.<\/p>\n\n

Jefferson wanted the Indians to know that, with the Louisiana Purchase a\nyear earlier, they were now subject to the U.S. government.<\/p>\n\n

To that end, Lewis drafted a lengthy speech which he delivered at every meeting.\n“Children,” he would intone, then tell the chiefs that they had a new father\nin a distant city called Washington.<\/p>\n\n

Clark was much more relaxed with the Indians. Adept at cataloguing languages,\nhe engaged them in interviews. The crew, dressed in full uniform, marched.\nLewis fired the cannon mounted on the front of the keelboat and passed out\ntrinkets.<\/p>\n\n

The first few meetings went well. But the captains heard repeated warnings\nabout a tribe upriver, the Teton Sioux—the Lakotas.<\/p>\n\n

That tribe only recently migrated to the Great Plains, but they held the\nregion in a treacherous grip. News of their piracy on the river had reached\nWashington. Lewis wanted to wrest control of the waterway from them. What\nhe met was a fierce struggle for survival.<\/p>\n\n

Only two weeks before the explorers arrived, the Lakotas killed and scalped\n65 Omaha warriors and captured 25 squaws. They were in no mood for a parade\nreview or Lewis’s condescending speech. The Lakota chiefs demanded more\nthan thimbles and flags. They wanted guns and whiskey. And they demanded\nthat the corps proceed no farther.<\/p>\n\n

At one point, three warriors grabbed the tow rope to Clark’s canoe.\nOne chief fired a verbal assault at Clark, and the captain drew his sword.\nWarriors readied their arrows. Lewis ordered his soldiers to arms and swung\nthe cannon in the chiefs’ direction.<\/p>\n\n

Time stood still it seemed.<\/p>\n\n

One shot, one rash move by anyone on either side, would launch a war, likely\na massacre, and end the expedition. Their lives hung in the balance; possibly\ntoo the fate of the nation. If Lewis and Clark were stopped here, the British\nand Spanish might soon secure the west coast, and Jefferson’s vision\nof one nation bridging the continent would never be realized.<\/p>\n\n

One chief spoke, breaking the tension. Clark seized the moment and agreed\nto stay on a few days for talks. Both sides lowered their weapons.<\/p>\n\n

Clark reflected later that relations were not good and further action would\nbe required. That, however, was not the right time, and the expedition was\nallowed to continue upriver.<\/p>\n\n

\n \n
Lewis and Clark soon learned that they could not\n treat all peoples in the same way. They fired the same greeting signals and\n delivered the same speeches, but the goods the captains dispersed varied\n with the reception they received. And the instructions they left depended\n on the willingness of the chiefs to carry them out.\n The corps leaders had anticipated reaching the headwaters of the Missouri\n before the river froze. Seeing that was impossible, they decided to winter\n at the last known spot on the map. The men hoped they would be welcome. They\n were.<\/td>\n \nAugust 18th,1805<\/strong><\/em>\n

This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all\n human probability now existed about half the period which I am to remain\n in this … world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very\n little, indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance\n the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many\n hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information\n which those hours would have given me, had they been judiciously expended.\n But since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dash from me the gloomy\n thought, and resolved in future … to live for mankind<\/em>, as I have\n heretofore lived for myself<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

—Meriwether Lewis<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n<\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

The Mandan villages amounting to 4,500 people were more populous than the\ncities of St. Louis or Washington. The corps built a fort and prepared to\nbrave subzero temperatures.<\/p>\n\n

The Indians there were gracious and curious. They visited the fort frequently\nwith news and food for trade.<\/p>\n\n

The tidbits of information filled in blanks in Lewis and Clark’s vision\nof what lay ahead. In the mountains, they were told, another river a short\njourney from the Missouri would carry them to the Pacific. That thought sustained\ntheir imaginations for the winter, while Indian corn filled their stomachs.<\/p>\n\n

The corps had eaten well thus far. When the hams and salted pork ran out,\nthe men killed game. On the plains, they feasted on buffalo hump and tongue,\nup to nine pounds per day to fuel each of these human machines. Now, in their\nsix-month stay among the Mandans, explorers grew to respect the natives and\ntheir ways, lessons that would mean their survival.<\/p>\n\n

They also used all their energies to further the enterprise. No effort was\nwasted. One crewman, a blacksmith by trade, made pots and tools to exchange\nfor the corn. And Lewis’s medical skills, this time as midwife, brought\nhim into contact with Bird Woman.<\/p>\n\n

Sacagawea was actually a teenager, maybe 16 at the time, one of two wives\nof a French trader. She was captured as a child in a raid on the Shoshone.\nHer language skills would be critically important later, but now she was\nin agony, suffering a horrible labor. The baby wouldn’t come.<\/p>\n\n

Lewis gave her a potion of ground rattlesnake rings mixed with water, a pain\nkiller the Indians had taught him, and within ten minutes she delivered.\nWith the birth of Jean-Baptiste Charboneau, the Corps of Discovery was complete.<\/p>\n\n

Discovery 4: When to listen to your team and when you shouldn’t<\/strong>\nAs leaders, Lewis and Clark displayed rare insight on a key point in decision\nmaking: how large to draw the circle.<\/p>\n\n

At the center of their process were Jefferson’s orders. Jefferson himself\nhad penned the lengthy guidelines for the trip, down to the questions to\nask the Indian tribes.<\/p>\n\n

When Clark stood down from a fight with the Lakotas, it was because the mission\ngiven by the president was of greater importance. When Lewis spent hours\nevery day drafting descriptions of plant life, it was to provide Jefferson\na vivid and scientifically accurate picture of the West. When the crew spent\nhalf a day trying to flood a prairie dog out of its hole, it was because\nJefferson wanted samples of animal life shipped back to Washington. (The\nprairie dog arrived alive.) Literally every decision was weighed against\nthe mandate from the president.<\/p>\n\n

The captains had also agreed that no action would be taken unless they both\nfavored it. Neither man’s journal indicates he ever disagreed with a\ndecision they put forth as a team. In every instance, one leader enforced\nthe other’s orders.<\/p>\n\n

Clark and Lewis exercised great discernment on when they included others\nin their decisions. Early in the trip, after a sergeant died from what was\nlikely a ruptured appendix, the soldiers voted on his replacement. The men\nchose the soldier they wanted to follow. Much later, when choosing winter\nquarters prior to the return trip, the captains called the roll and each\nman voted. The French trader voted. York, the slave, voted, and so did Sacagawea.\nThe fort was built at the site the whole unit selected.<\/p>\n\n

On issues of “followship” and comfort, the captains encouraged and submitted\nto the group’s decisions. Where the mission itself was at stake, they\ndid not.<\/p>\n\n

Their tactic was tested at a fork in the river. The Indians had made no mention\nof it. The northern fork was as muddy as the route from St. Louis. The crew\nwas convinced that was the true Missouri. Lewis and Clark favored the southern\nbranch, the clearer one, which they expected of a mountain-born river.<\/p>\n\n

The right choice should lead them to the Northwest Passage. The wrong choice\ncould end the mission.<\/p>\n\n

Lewis hiked forty miles up the muddy tributary to investigate his crew’s\nhunch. Returning, he was even more convinced that his and Clark’s choice\nwas correct. The men were unmoved, but Lewis wrote, “They said very cheerfully\nthat they were ready to follow us any where we thought proper to direct.”<\/p>\n\n

The captains were right.<\/p>\n\n

Soon the expedition heard the roaring of a falls which the Indians had predicted,\ntoday’s Great Falls, Montana.<\/p>\n\n

At the fork Lewis and Clark showed they knew when to trust the team and when\nto trust themselves. And at the falls the Corps of Discovery entered the\nseason of its greatest struggle.<\/p>\n\n

Discovery 5: When the going gets tougher than planned<\/strong>\nLewis heard the roaring from seven miles away. Rushing ahead with a scouting\nparty, he found not one waterfall but five. The sight was breathtaking, “a\nsublimely grand specticle,” Lewis called the crashing waters. At the same\ntime, his hopes for a half-day’s portage around the falls were dashed.\nIt was the first of a string of disappointments.<\/p>\n\n

Under the broiling sun, the men hoisted the canoes on their backs and carried\nthe cargo across 18 miles of rocky ground infested with prickly pear needles.\nSoon their feet were but clubs of bloody, shredded flesh. The trip lasted\nmore than two weeks.<\/p>\n\n

Ocian in view! \nO! the joy. \n<\/em>—William Clark <\/em><\/p>\n\n

Lewis had invested much time and emotion in a boat he called “the experiment.”\nLeaving the two large pirogues on the lower side of the falls, Lewis had\nhis men assemble the 36-foot iron frame he had designed. They covered it\nwith hides and daubed the seams with beeswax. The boat floated like a cork,\nLewis reported, for a few minutes. Then it sank. The crew built two new dugout\ncanoes.<\/p>\n\n

Sacagawea offered a glimmer of hope to the suffering corps. She recognized\nthe terrain. They were nearing the people from whom she was taken as a child,\nand she said they were nearing the river that ran west and to the ocean.<\/p>\n\n

Lewis, agitated by a southerly turn in the Missouri, took a small party overland\nto find the Shoshone. He needed to buy horses for the crossing to the Columbia.\nSpotting one young warrior at a distance, Lewis bared his forearm to show\nhis white skin and waved. He shouted “ta-ba-bone!” Sacagawea said that was\nthe word her people would use for “white man.” It meant “stranger.” The boy\nfled.<\/p>\n\n

Pursuing him, Lewis followed a trail that led to the spring source of the\nMissouri. And just above that, the ridgeline of the Rocky Mountains. Lewis\nwas at the Continental Divide, now Lehmi Pass in Idaho, the end of United\nStates territory. Beyond this point, the rivers flowed west. Over this ridge\nhe expected to see the Columbia and his quest for the Northwest Passage\ncompleted.<\/p>\n\n

Lewis mounted the rise.<\/p>\n\n

Reaching the top, he looked over into another vast mountain range—mountain\npeaks as far as he could see. Here, one historian says, the geography of\nhope clashed with the geography of reality. Here, Lewis’s dream was\nshattered. The vision of three hundred years, to find a water route to the\nPacific, crushed. Lewis would not have counted himself among the great explorers\nCook and Columbus at that moment. Jefferson was wrong. And Lewis had failed.<\/p>\n\n

Given his tendency to depression, Lewis might have quit if the lives of his\ncrew were not at stake. Winter was coming again, and he had to secure horses\nto scale this unending mountain range.<\/p>\n\n

At the instant when all hope appeared lost, an incredible coincidence buoyed\nthe corps. Lewis made contact with the Shoshone, a party of 60 in battle\ngear. Early negotiations were dicey, until Sacagawea recognized the chief.\nShe ran to him, threw her blanket over him, and wept. The chief was her brother.<\/p>\n\n

He sold Lewis horses and sent a guide. Confident that they could make it,\nthe Corps of Discovery set out for the ocean.<\/p>\n\n

Discovery 6: When you’re at the end of your resources<\/strong>\nThe Lewis we see after Lehmi Pass is a little more sober and a lot more realistic\nthan the idealistic adventurer who set out from Washington two-and-one-half\nyears earlier. Lewis’s journal entry on his birthday, the day after\npurchasing the horses, shows an introspection uncharacteristic of his earlier\nwriting.<\/p>\n\n

The death of his dream has forged a new resolve.<\/p>\n\n

He writes not about presidential commands but his own desire to better the\nhuman condition. His motivation is not fame or reward or even duty. Stripped\nof every inconsequential thing, Lewis has found that sometimes survival is\nreward enough. He has tapped a strength not normally his own. He has endured\nadversity and embraced serendipity.<\/p>\n\n

Summer was over. The corps still had to brave what one sergeant called “the\nmost terrible mountains that I ever beheld.” The mountain walls rose straight\nup in many places. Horses lost their footing and fell 20 or 30 feet among\nthe rocks. Snow fell in September that year. The Indian guide lost the trail.\nFood ran short. They were reduced to scavaging for roots. One camp they named\n“Hungery Creek” because they had only water. And still, the mountains extended\nfarther than they could see, much farther than anyone expected.<\/p>\n\n

The corps emerged from the Bitterroot mountains, more dead than alive, and\nstill no Columbia.<\/p>\n\n

The Indian tribe that came to their aid first planned to kill the corps and\nthrow their emaciated bodies off a cliff. Only later did the explorers learn\nthat the intervention of an elderly squaw averted their slaughter. In their\nencounters only one tribe treated them badly. If not for the provisions and\nskills obtained from the native peoples on their route, the expedition surely\nwould have failed, the men died, and their fate probably never known.<\/p>\n\n

\n \n
\nNovember 7th, 1805<\/em><\/strong>\n

Great joy in camp. We are in View<\/em> of the Ocian<\/em>, this great\n Pacific Octean which we [have] been So long anxious to See, and the roreing\n or noise made by the waves brakeing on the rockey Shores … may be heard\n disticly.<\/p>\n\n

—William Clark<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/td>\n

The Nez Perce, named for their pierced noses, fed the strangers\n for a month while the men carved five small boats for their final river trip\n west. Their chief agreed to look after the horses for the winter. He accompanied\n them down the first westward flowing stream and pointed Discovery toward\n the Columbia. Turning their canoes into the headwaters of the fabled river, Lewis and Clark\nreturned to the map. They spied at a distance the snowcapped Cascade Mountains,\nreported earlier by Captain Gray.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n<\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

The Indian camps bore evidence that traders\nhad come upriver—uniform coats and brass teakettles. The signs were familiar.\nAlthough they had never come this way before, others had. The captains knew\nthey were headed in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n

The first taste of brackish water promised the ocean soon. Clark’s most\nfamous journal entry attests his exhilaration as a morning fog lifted from\nthe channel they traveled and he saw nothing but water as far as the horizon.\n“O! the joy.”<\/p>\n\n

But the Pacific was not yet in view.<\/p>\n\n

They were in a bay, still more than 50 miles from the ocean. Fierce winter\nstorms pounded the coast for three weeks, and the crew huddled, miserable,\nin camp a few miles from the ocean. In the end, only half the men hiking\noverland actually saw the great ocean they had travelled halfway across the\ncontinent to see—4,162 miles by Clark’s estimation.<\/p>\n\n

Each man carved his initials in a tree. Lewis branded one, and Clark etched\nhis name and the date: “By Land from the U. States in 1804 & 1805.”<\/p>\n\n

President Jefferson estimated that it would take a hundred generations to\ninhabit the land explored by Lewis and Clark. It took less than five. By\nthe end of the century, 16 million Americans would be living in the states\nalong the expedition’s route, from Missouri to Oregon. And today, signs\nmark the federal highway “Lewis and Clark Trail” for those willing to come\nbehind them.<\/p>\n\n

For those wanting to explore uncharted territory, their discoveries in\nleadership, just as clearly, mark the way.<\/p>\n\n

Eric Reed<\/strong> is associate editor of LEADERSHIP.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

We are grateful to Dave Travis of the Dallas-based Leadership Network who\ndrew our attention to the expedition and some of its parallels to pastoral\nleadership (see www.churchchamp.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n

For more information consult these sources:<\/p>\n\n

“Lewis & Clark: A Film by Ken Burns,” (Turner, 1997),<\/p>\n\n

Lewis & Clark: Journey of the Corps of Discovery<\/em> by Dayton Duncan (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997)<\/p>\n\n

Undaunted Courage<\/em> by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon and Schuster, 1996).<\/p>\n\n

Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today\/Leadership<\/em> Journal.\nClick here<\/a> for reprint information on Leadership Journal.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 7th, 1805 Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large perogues. This little fleet altho’ not quite so rispectable as those of Columbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers ever beheld theirs; and I dare say with quite as much anxiety Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[1544],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[663,664,156],"tax_ctp_tags":[4033,4150,4652,5127,5242],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-21197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-eric-reed","tax_publications-1999-leadership-journal","tax_publications-fall_1999-leadership-journal","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-future","tax_ctp_tags-history","tax_ctp_tags-planning","tax_ctp_tags-teamwork","tax_ctp_tags-vision"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"\nLeading Into the Unkown - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 7th, 1805 Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large perogues. 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