Allen provides a seminal analysis of the geographic knowledge and misconceptions that shaped the Lewis and Clark Expedition from conception through execution. The article traces the evolution of European and American understanding of trans-Mississippi geography, focusing on the persistent myth of a short, easy portage between navigable tributaries of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. Allen demonstrates how this “passage through the garden” concept, rooted in Renaissance-era geographic theory and reinforced by speculative 18th-century cartography, fundamentally shaped Jefferson’s instructions and Lewis’s expectations. The article examines how the expedition’s actual discoveries — the vast, mountainous barrier of the Rockies, the absence of an easy water route, the complexity of the Columbia River system — systematically dismantled these optimistic assumptions. Allen argues that understanding this “geography of the imagination” is essential for interpreting the expedition’s decisions, frustrations, and ultimate achievement in crossing a continent far more formidable than anyone had anticipated.
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