Sacajawea remains a critical player in this story, of course, but Fehrman’s work also reveals new stories of other expedition members, as well as people they met along the way. There’s York, the Black man enslaved by William Clark; John Ordway, the soldier who journaled about Native Americans; and the Blackfoot youth named Wolf Calf who skirmished with the party members. And from afar, then-President Thomas Jefferson fought to support the expedition. Fehrman spent years digging through archives and collecting interviews, and he says the public interest in the expedition was akin to today’s Artemis II space mission. He’s joining us to talk about how Lewis and Clark — and everyone who helped them — battled their way through a wild and dangerous land that each of them understood very differently.
GUEST –
Craig Fehrman | He’s an historian and a journalist. His book is called “This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark.”
Airdate: May 28 and 30, 2026