Center selected as ‘Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country’ site

      (June 8, 2007) – The Encounter Center now under construction on Sioux City’s Missouri Riverfront has been selected as one of 23 sites in the nation to host “Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country,” a traveling exhibit based on a major exhibition of the same title created by the Newberry Library in Chicago.

     The Encounter Center will open in late fall to meet the expanded mission of the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. The $3.5 million project is being funded entirely by Missouri River Historical Development, Inc. (MRHD).

     The 1,000-square-foot traveling “Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country” will be launched this fall at libraries and cultural centers that engage with Native peoples and their cultures. The exhibit will then travel to host sites as far east as Dartmouth College, Dartmouth, N.H., and as far west as Multnomah County Library, Portland, Ore. The Encounter Center will be among Midwestern host sites that include Purdue University Libraries, West Lafayette, Ind.; Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis.; and University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

     The exhibit will present a new set of ideas about the encounter of Native Americans with the U.S. Corps of Discovery between 1804 and 1806. It will trace the dramatic impact of those encounters during the subsequent two centuries. centuries. centuries.

     “The exhibit will bring powerful support for the position that Lewis & Clark history does not end with the Corps of Discovery’s return to St. Louis in September 1806. Rather, the Bicentennial set the stage for exploring the ongoing impact of the Expedition on people, particularly Native people, who were here before Lewis & Clark and who came after,” says Marcia Poole, director of the Center.

     The Center initiated a Native cultures focus in 2005 in partnership with Creighton University’s Native American Studies Program. Raymond A. Bucko, S.J., is director of the NAS Program and the Center’s Cultural Outreach Advisor. “Well before the Bicentennial ended, the Center launched a long-range plan to commemorate a history of encounters that came before, during and after Lewis & Clark and are ongoing,” says Bucko.

     The traveling exhibit is sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office, in collaboration with the Newberry Library with major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH has designated the traveling exhibit as a “We the People Project” for promoting knowledge and understanding of American History and Culture.

     The Center partnered with Briar Cliff University’s Bishop Mueller Library as part of the effort to bring “Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country” to Siouxland. Endorsements also came from officials, scholars and artists representing the Sioux City Public Library; South Sioux City Public Library; North Sioux City Community Library; Creighton University’s NAS Program, Sociology and Anthropology Department, and History Department; Briar Cliff University’s History Department; St. Augustine Indian Mission, Winnebago, Neb.; University of Nebraska-Omaha History Department; and Steinhoff & Associates of Omaha.s of Omaha.

     “Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country” will tour until November 2011. The tour schedule will be released this summer. Each host site will present a series of free programs by qualified scholars on topics related to exhibit themes.bit themes.

     The exhibit and programs will offer unique opportunities for visitors: to explore the “Indian Country” as it existed at the beginning of the 19^th century; to glimpse the variety of relationships Native peoples and the Lewis and Clark party forged with one another; to view the impact of the American presence on the “Indian Country”; and to reflect on the efforts of contemporary reservation communities to support and sustain the “Indian Country” and its remarkable cultures in the 21^st century.

  The Center, exit 149 off I-29, is a private, non-profit institution built and sustained by Missouri River Historical Development, Inc., (MRHD). Admission, all programs, exhibits and activities are free.  For more information, call 712-224-5242 or visit www.siouxcitylcic.com.

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