It's hard sometimes to to understand why the Lewis and Clark story is so important. After all, Lewis and Clark didn't start the western fur trade. They don't pioneer a route that other overland immigrants will use. Those routes are pioneered by others. I think that we've seized on them because they remind us about the journey.
Life is a journey.
They were on the road. We're on the road too. We see that in our literature, in our writing. From Pilgrim's Progress and Canterbury Tales to John Wayne in Stagecoach. We think about life as a journey.