Dramatic entrance ‘Into the West’

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY

We’ve been semi-enjoying the summer miniseries “Into the West” on

TNT. The landscapes and costuming are spectacular, but the characters

tend to be trite and the inevitable crises are ones we’ve seen over

and over in Westerns.

In a rare departure from standard Westerns, this one leaves the

Great Plains and the Rockies briefly as our intrepid hero, Jacob

Wheeler, travels with Jedediah Smith to Southern California. Later,

Wheeler remarks to the folks back home about the size of the oranges

growing at San Gabriel Mission. We were surprised and pleased to

finally see a bit of California history depicted in the exploration

of the West.

In 1826, Smith’s party crossed deep into New Spain, which in those

days included the whole Southwest. The men in his party were the

first Americans to cross the Southwest, but of course the Spanish

padres had been here since the 1780s and the Native Americans for

thousands of years before that.

In 1828, Smith traveled up the California Central Valley and north

into Oregon, looking for beaver. But he was hardly the first American

to reach Oregon. President Thomas Jefferson had purchased the

Louisiana Territory back in 1803, and had sent Meriwether Lewis and

William Clark to explore and map it. The Americans wanted to claim

land stretching from coast to coast. The British had explored Canada

all the way to the Pacific, laying claim to that entire land.

Jefferson was concerned Britain would also lay claim to the Oregon

Territory. Back then, the law said that whoever sailed into the mouth

of a river could claim the entire watershed for their country,

ignoring the native people that already lived there. American,

British, Russian and Spanish ships had all sailed to the mouth of the

Columbia River. Jefferson wanted to cross by land to secure the

Oregon Territory for America.

“The object of your mission,” Jefferson wrote Lewis, “is to

explore the Missouri River and such principal streams of it, as, by

its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean,

whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer

the most direct and practicable water communication across this

continent for the purposes of commerce.”

In their landmark journey between 1803 and 1806, Lewis and Clark

made it across the continent, establishing preliminary relations with

the Native Americans who lived in the Louisiana and Oregon

territories.

Two hundred years ago this week, the Lewis and Clark party

struggled up the Great Falls of the Missouri River in Montana. This

arduous 18-mile portage took them a month. With the help of Indian

guides and French trappers, the Lewis and Clark expedition made it to

the West Coast and laid claim to the entire Oregon Territory for

America, realizing Jefferson’s dream of linking the coasts.

Americans didn’t reach Southern California until Smith’s party

made the journey in 1826, because the deserts presented such a great

obstacle. All of the horses in Smith’s group died as they crossed the

Mojave Desert.

The men climbed on foot over the San Bernardino Mountains and

stumbled, ragged and half-starved, into the Spanish Mission on the

San Gabriel River, about 35 miles from here. Padre Jose Sanchez

welcomed them to the mission, providing new clothing. The clothes

were undoubtedly made by the Tongva (called Gabrielino Indians by the

Spaniards) who lived at the mission. Smith returned East via the

Central Valley and Great Basin.

In the fictionalized “Into the West,” there are nuggets of truth,

like the story about a grizzly ripping off Smith’s scalp. However, it

didn’t happen on the trip to California; it occurred earlier in 1823.

In the miniseries, it is our hero, Jacob Wheeler, who sews it back

on, but in reality, it was a young man named Jim Clyman who performed

the makeshift surgery. Clyman thought Smith’s ear couldn’t be saved,

but Smith insisted he try.

According to Clyman’s later account, “I put my needle sticking it

through and through and over and over, laying the lacerated parts

together as nice as I could with my hands.”

The surgery to close the wounds caused by the grizzly bear’s teeth

and claws was performed without anesthesia and without antibiotics,

yet Smith was back leading his men within a few days.

In early 1828, Smith and his party traveled up the San Joaquin and

Sacramento valleys of California. They had 300 horses purchased at

the missions.

The Central Valley was a wetland paradise in those halcyon days,

full of birds and beaver. Grizzlies too. Smith was attacked twice in

April 1828. He escaped the first time by diving into the creek. The

second time, a grizzly grabbed his horse’s tail. The horse lunged

frantically to escape, dragging the bear 50 yards before it let go.

Smith was killed by Comanches in 1831 at age 32, before he had

time to publish the journal and maps of his California adventures.

This relegated his accomplishments to the shadows of history.

California has changed dramatically since the days of those early

American trappers. The wetlands of the Central Valley were drained

long ago, and the grizzlies were extirpated. The West is now a far

different place.

We hope you look beyond the trite script of the visually stunning

“Into the West” and watch it to recapture the ambience of our great

land as it was a relatively short time ago.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].