Professor's book recognizes explorers Mackay, Evans

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Before Lewis and Clark, there were Mackay and Evans -- "the two most famous travelers of the northern countries of this continent."

Of course, that was before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark made their historic journey to the Pacific.

Now, who remembers James Mackay and John Evans?

Raymond Wood, for one.

Wood, a professor at the University of Missouri, has written a book on the two, who explored territories along the Missouri River from St. Louis into what is now North Dakota less than a decade before the Lewis and Clark expedition began in 1803.

Among their contributions to the discoveries of the North American interior, Mackay and Evans acquired maps and information that would later guide Lewis and Clark on part of their journey.

"The first year, Lewis and Clark weren't exploring anything other than a well-known highway," Wood said.

Academics, but not the public, are well aware of explorers who came before Lewis and Clark, Wood said. To expand that awareness, he has coalesced 30 years of research into a book, "Prologue to Lewis and Clark," published last month by Oklahoma Press.

Mackay, a fur trader in Canada, had knowledge of territories in Canada, from Montreal to the Rocky Mountains.

A Welshman, Evans had no previous experience with exploration and came to the United States to search for a tribe of Welsh-speaking Indians who were believed at the time to live in North America. The Welsh believed that such a find would validate their claim that they settled the Midwest before the English arrived in America.

It was only later, Wood said, that he learned the story was false.

Wood is considered a top expert on the activities of people before Lewis and Clark in the Mississippi and Missouri river regions, said Susan Flader, a professor of American western and environmental history at Missouri.

"Historians know the fact that there were many fur traders going up the rivers, and they know a lot about early explorers in that area," she said. "But most people haven't been as painstaking as Wood in trying to figure out who was where and when."