Multnomah Falls, which drop 189 metres off the side of Larch Mountain, are a popular attraction. -- Photos by Katie Chalmers-Brooks

Lois Weismantel, a retired school teacher from San Diego, drifts along the river route of legendary explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a journey so brutal the men had to eat their own horses or risk starving to death.

Weismantel faces a tough decision of her own. What will it be? Rainbow trout a la Petersburg, fettuccine with seared scallops, eggplant parmesan or roasted chicken with rosemary jus?

Sipping white wine late afternoon aboard the Spirit of '98, Weismantel reveals her hunger for history, not toe-pinching high heels. She and her husband, a retired lawyer, settled on a seven-night tour from Portland, Ore., down the Columbia and Snake Rivers on a small ship with no formal dress code, no discotheque, no stage shows. For less money, they could have travelled more exotic waters in a monster vessel with the glare of the Las Vegas strip.

"Some people want to see show girls. That's not my cup of tea," Weismantel says. "If you put me on a Carnival cruise ship, I'd die."

Despite being able to accommodate 96, there are only 55 passengers aboard Cruise West's replica riverboat this time around.

Pampered tourists, including a handful of us travel writers on a junket, are marking the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's 1804-06 marathon trek, a tale gradually revealed with each anecdote offered up by Ian Sampson, exploration leader.

He tells us how rain rotted their leather clothes. The cold burned their skin. The mountains blocked their way while dysentery rattled their bodies.

Leather-bound diaries written by 29-year-old Lewis, the introspective one, and Clark, the talkative outdoorsman, 33, earned them superstar status among the PBS-watching crowd. Centuries after their deaths, these captains of the first American expedition into the Pacific Northwest carry big marketing power. Lewis's suspicious demise -- was it murder or suicide? -- adds to the intrigue.

The explorers even have their own groupies known as the Clarkies, in addition to action figures, table runners, mini skillets and trail berry air fresheners for the car.

We cruise the Willamette River before heading east down the Columbia and Snake Rivers into Washington and eventually Idaho. On the way back, we'll sail past Portland, retracing Lewis and Clark's final push toward the Pacific.

Former accountant Dave Yurina will navigate 1,600 kilometres of waterway. The laidback captain admits most of the time he steers the floating hotel with his foot.

Massive dams bury the rapids that once roared for Lewis, Clark and their crew known as the Corps of Discovery. These man-made giants that transformed the wild river into a purring housecat can quiet a crowd on deck as easily as the Cascade Mountain range that lines the banks.

Cecelia, a retiree from California, wants to know if my husband and I, both in our late 20s, knew our first cruise would be spent with "a bunch of old fogies." Martha Wharton, director of marketing and communications for Cruise West, says their package grabs the 55-60ish demographic. The passengers are educated and well travelled. In their world, Paris Hilton is nothing more than a hotel in France they happen to fancy.

The cruise line, which specializes in small ships, markets the journey as a River Voyage of Discovery. "It appeals to anyone who likes history, geology and engineering," Wharton says. "More than age, it's interest."

Passengers aboard the Spirit of '98 live on the river from sunrise to sunset.

And disposable income. The cost for one passenger is roughly $356 US per day, which covers meals, tips, daily excursions and lodging.

Nobody locks their doors aboard the tight-knit Spirit of '98 -- you can't unless you are in the room. At first, this system makes some guests leery, as does the blast of the ship's 300-horsepower bow thruster, particularly for those with staterooms on the first deck. The captain activates the noisy device every time he manoeuvres the ship through the locks, which can happen early morning or mid-night.

Extravagant

The staterooms are comfortable but nowhere near as extravagant as the view. Forested mountains climb the height of the CN Tower before softening into barren rolling hills. Lush greens change to terrain as bald and wrinkled as elephant hide. It's not unusual to step out of the shower and see a waterfall through the cabin window.

During our voyage, eight lock systems raise the ship the combined equivalent of a 225-metre skyscraper. At John Day Dam, the largest of them all, a guillotine gate made of 200 tons of steel and reinforced concrete lowers to create an enormous bathtub. Water is pumped inside until it lifts the ship 34 metres, allowing the captain to travel the next section of river.

The Spirit of '98, a replica of popular coastal steamers, can accommodate 96 passengers.

With 14 dams on the Columbia's main stem, including three in Canada, park ranger Jonathan Russo's tourism spiel includes a hats off to "the damndest river in North America."

Two centuries ago, Lewis and Clark set up camp near a particularly violent section of the waterway now home to Bonneville Lock and Dam. The Corps persevered despite some pretty mean waterfalls. Today, two busloads of cruise ship passengers take an underground look into the facility's salmon ladder. Fish the length of a human arm show similar resolve as they brawl with the current in an effort to get upstream and spawn. An equally determined sea lion loiters nearby, unfazed by Bonneville crew firing pyrotechnic flares. "He's been driving them crazy for weeks now," explains Sampson, our guide, a war vet who returned from Vietnam with two burst ear drums.

Multnomah Falls is our next stop.

Water plummets 189 metres off the side of Larch Mountain, securing Multnomah's title as one of Oregon's most popular tourist attractions, second to a casino.

Sampson explains how a portion of the cliff once broke away, smashed into the pool below and showered a bride and groom while they exchanged vows at the storybook spot. He offers the first of many predictable puns: "It got their wedding off to a rocky start."

Locks raise.lower water levels

Back on the ship, all eyes are on Native American storyteller James Spencer, standing in the grand salon, a warm room with sofas upholstered in reds and gold, mouldings in oak and ceiling tiles in tin. A bundle of fur on his head and a real bear claw hanging from his neck, Spencer shares the story of an elderly native woman gutsy enough to intervene when locals figured they'd get rid of Lewis and Clark for good.

The Nez Perce Indians had never seen white people before. They didn't know what to make of the freakish group with round, fish-like eyes and hair on their chins that made their faces appear upside down. But a woman named Watkuweis came to their defence, even nursing the emaciated explorers back to health. Eventually the Nez Perce would lose their land and be shuffled off to reserves.

Spencer's tutorial borders stand-up comedy. "See what we get for listening to a woman?" he mutters.

The aboriginal storyteller also acknowledges the only female member of the Corps and probably its toughest force. Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman married to French Canadian fur trader Toussaint Charbonneau, made the expedition while pregnant and then with a newborn baby strapped to her back.

Park ranger Matthew Moores at Fort Clatsop

One cruise passenger asks if the Nez Perce still hunt with a bow and arrow. Spencer scratches his head: "They keep kicking us out of Safeway."

Sentimental side

But he also offers a sentimental side. With eyes closed, Spencer uses a traditional flute to recreate a courting call for young Nez Perce women. Their boyfriends would play from a distance, hoping the melody would reach the raven-haired belles stuck inside the family tent doing chores. "It was said every woman knew the songs of her man."

Spencer's ancestors no longer dry salmon on the shores of the Snake. Posh vacation homes decorate the banks, seen from jet boats clipping along the river as it curls through the deepest river gorge in North America: Hells Canyon.

Justin Luther, who drives the boat for his family's business, Snake River Adventures, appears pleased he "ain't sitting in no cubicle." The 28-year-old supposedly knows every rock we pass during our daylong excursion. The 257-kilometre round trip will cover three states, travelling through some sections where the water is only 14 inches deep.

The further the motor boat ventures, the less we see of log homes, power lines and lazy ranches with cattle that roam the steep hills. Lava flow, the Ice Age, severe flooding and erosion created this beautiful freak of nature.

People come here to hike 1.3 kilometres of trails, put up tents in isolation, chase giant sturgeon or ride the rapids in kayaks. We stick to the mild ones during our outing. Luther slows long enough for the tour group to scramble for their cameras. A pair of Bighorn sheep on the basalt cliffs strike a pose.

Seven days in, the Spirit of '98 stops for our last excursion. We're docked a safe distance away from the mouth of the Columbia River, where masses of fresh water collide with the ocean head on, creating a notorious bar crossing considered one of the most dangerous on the planet.

Understandably, the volatile intersection is home to the country's only training school for rough-water rescue. A combination of shallow water, sand bars and high seas can cook up six-metre waves. Historians claim the Graveyard of the Pacific has swallowed more than 700 people and some 2,000 ships since the late 18th century.

Their loafers on solid ground, cruise ship passengers take in the stories -- some heartbreaking, some heroic -- at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Ore.

The two exploration guides aboard the Spirit of '98 hyped this last leg of the trip all week. Finally, we arrive by bus at The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Centre, a museum built on a grassy cliff on the Astoria coastline. An enormous ship the size of a dime is proof the ocean is huge.

For the gang that came before us, this would have been the end of an 18-month voyage rambling along on foot, or fighting rapids from an uncomfortable canoe dug out from a tree. By now, 6,500 kilometres of raw nature would have destroyed their army boots.

Before starting for home, the group of 33 spent the winter at nearby Fort Clatsop. Where the captains suffered, visitors now compare features on their digital cameras. Park rangers in suede costumes show off a reconstruction of the log fort, cramped quarters surrounded by soaring fir trees.

They hid indoors, writing by candlelight and securing their place in textbooks, travel brochures and exploration cruises. The miserable bunch lived here 106 days. It rained all but 12.

We mark the end of our journey under slightly different conditions.

During the captain's dinner on the final evening aboard the Spirit of '98, we devour filet mignon served with sauce bordelaise and sip champagne until we're bubbly.

We chat about our respect for the explorers, more dogged than Ironman triathletes, but skip the parts about their dizzying nausea, enlarged joints and infestations of blood-sucking fleas.

Wouldn't want to spoil any appetites.

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IF YOU GO ...

For bicentennial events, visit:

- www.lewisandclark200.org

- http://www.lewisandclark200.org/

- www.lcbo.net .

Cruise lines offering Lewis and Clark packages:

- Cruise West; 1-800-203-8306, www.cruisewest.com.

- American West Steamboat Company; 1-800-434-1232, www.americanweststeamboat.com.

- Portland Spirit (day cruises); 1-800-224-3901, www.portlandspirit.com.