With Lewis and Clark - Jean Baptiste Le Junesse
Jean Baptiste LaJunesse was one of nine French boatmen hired by the Captains Lewis and Clark to accompany the expedition as far as the Mandan Indian villages of North Dakota. LaJuneese spent the winter in the Dakotas, then returned the following spring with the expedition's keelboat. It is now 1805, and the expedition has not been heard from in quite some time. Baptiste will tell, in brief, about how and why he came to be hired, the journey up the Missouri River to the Mandans, the winter there, and what he believes will become of the expedition. He will then take questions on his life and experiences with the "Voyage of Discovery."
Tony Gerard teaches Biology at Shawnee Community College. He has been involved in living history since the early 1980s, with a particular interest in the eastern frontier of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Gerard has given seminars on first person interpretation at various historic sites throughout the US and Canada, including Colonial Williamsburg, Fortress Louisburg, Fort Loudon, and Fort Toulouse. He has served as a technical advisor, casting, set dressing, and location scout for numerous History Channel productions (over 30 to date) and was a core extra in the motion picture Last of the Mohicans and the recent PBS production The War That Made America.
