Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me, Wayne. Arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But I finally got here. Please return all mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know you're a great man. I now walk into the wild. --Alex. (Postcard received by Wayne...

In 1804, John Colter set out with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the first U.S. expedition to traverse the North American continent. During the twenty-eight month ordeal, Colter served as a hunter and scout, and honed his survival skills on the western frontier. But when the journey was over, Colter stayed behind, spending four more years trekking alone through dangerous and unfamiliar territory. Along the way, he charted some of the West's...

"Thomas Jefferson's Corps of Discovery included Captains Lewis and Clark and a crew of 28 men to chart a route from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. All the crew but one volunteered for the mission. York, the enslaved man taken on the journey, did not choose to go. Slaves did not have choices. York's contributions to the expedition, however, were invaluable. The captains came to rely on York's judgement, determination, and peacemaking role with the...

"The explosive true saga of the legendary figure Daniel Boone and the bloody struggle for America's frontier by two bestselling authors at the height of their writing power--Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the 13 colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America's "First Frontier" beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts...

Describes the lives of the beaver trappers who were the first explorers of the American West beyond the Rocky mountains, and some of the tall tales that made them legends.

Traces the lives of Lewis and Clark from their youth to their successful return from exploring the American West.

A journal of the "tour" of an Eastern journalist through the American West in 1846.

Chronicles the exploits of the mountain men who opened many trails and passages through the American West in the early nineteenth century.

This book describes the discoveries made by the mountain men and trappers from the 1820s to the 1840s and explains how the discovery of the South Pass and the creation of maps opened the West for settlers.

John C. Fremont, nearly forgotten today, was one of the giants of nineteenth-century America. He led five expeditions into the American West in the 1840s and 1850s, covering a greater area than any other explorer. His expedition reports--ghost-written by his beautiful and talented wife, Jessie Benton Fremont-- were bestsellers in their day. Riding the wave of his popularity, he captured the Republican Party nomination for president in 1856 but narrowly...