The Corps of Northwest Discovery, under the leadership of captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, left St. Louis on May 14, 1804, with instructions from President Thomas Jefferson "to explore the Missouri river, and such principal streams of it, as, by it's course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent...." The Corps returned almost 2 1/2 years later, in September of 1806, its members becoming the first U.S. citizens to go to the Pacific and back by land.

Though almost all of the 32 members of the expedition's permanent party receded into obscurity after the journey, each one performed duties critical to its success. Today we remember Pierre Cruzatte, the expedition's primary navigator, mainly for a hunting accident in which he severely injured Captain Lewis. However, Cruzatte, son of a French father and Omaha Indian mother, was not only the expedition's most knowledgeable waterman, but was also its most prominent musician. A fiddler, Cruzatte played "extreemly well" according to Captain Lewis himself. Cruzatte's music served not only as recreation for the men of the expedition (and for Sacagawea and her baby) but as a critical diplomatic tool: Cruzatte played--and the men danced and sang--for many of the nearly fifty Indian nations the expedition met along the way. According to Lewis and Clark scholar James Ronda, "the Expedition became the first federally-funded transcontinental dance troupe."

It's late September, 1806. Lewis, Clark, Cruzatte, and the rest of the Corps of Discovery have just returned to St. Louis after their journey to the Pacific. Many of the men, including Cruzatte, are preparing to head back up the river, perhaps to capitalize on their unique knowledge of West, or perhaps simply to seek out more adventure. Gather around Cruzatte as he relives his experiences with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Fact (mostly). Lewis and Clark have been called "the writingist explorers"; during the expedition, the two captains, as well as a number of the other members of the party, kept extensive journals. All of the the events in the program--and countless additional interesting and exciting ones--appear in these journals. So all of the events Cruzatte describes in the program actually happened, though I have slightly altered or embellished some of them. The journals of the expedition are an American treasure, spelling and all.