________________________The University of Montana President's Report 1999________________________ |
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Mussulman and original designer
Keith Phillips created the artistic look of the site, with its vibrant artwork, maps,
drawings and subdued hues of yellow, brown and sepia. It’s a Web site to become lost
in, with engaging topics and numerous subject branchings.
Mussulman says there are four ways to explore the site. One is through a 19-part essay by UM history Professor Harry Fritz, a Lewis and Clark specialist. Internet surfers also can read selected Lewis and Clark journal entries, or they can click on portions of an interactive map of the explorers’ western march. Or people can use “discovery paths” to access subjects as diverse as geography, native nations and the Corps of Discovery itself. The site first went online in fall 1997 and will continue growing at least through 2003. It is a progressive site, and at least one interpretive episode is added each month – such as a study of Indian modes of navigation or a new treatment of York, Clark’s black slave. “We go into very dense detail,” Mussulman says. “A recent episode on Fort Clatsop (a site at the mouth of the Columbia River), for example, gives a virtual 3-D tour of the fort. And we did a long episode on salt, since they built a salt camp out there. Why did they need salt? What did they do with it? We answer a lot of questions.” “Discovering
Lewis and Clark” has become a lifestyle and labor of love for Mussulman, who
eventually hopes to launch the Web site from the Internet to an educational CD-ROM. |
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________________________The Discovery Continues________________________ |
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