“I made a film about the expedition of Lewis & Clark so that I could really tune into the wilderness areas of America. That is when I discovered I am the only adult male in the country that can put up a tent in two hours when the instruction manual says, ‘assembles in 10 minutes,’” Filmmaker Robin D. Williams says with a grin. “But that is eclipsed by my getting lost in Yellowstone, within sight of the lodge. I am living proof that we have strayed too far away from our human connection with nature.”

To connect with nature, Robin stepped into the Missouri River to feel how explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their Corps of Discovery must have felt when they began their westward journey from St. Louis on May 14, 1804. “I found that the sharp stones in the river were making it virtually impossible for me to walk at all.” The men on the expedition had to drag their canoes wearing nothing more than moccasins. “If I had kept walking along that way, I would have become lame within four or five minutes.”

Williams said it was remarkable how the explorers overcame the physical obstacles associated with traveling upstream for nearly 3,000 miles, and how they handled some of the dangerous situations they experienced. “I followed them every step of the way,” Williams said. “I show the audience the sites in chronological order, so they get to see what it looked like to Lewis and Clark.” Robin was determined to show not only the journey, but to understand the preparations these explorers made, remarkable for their time.

Williams begins the journey at Monticello, the Charlottesville, Virginia home of Thomas Jefferson, who commissioned the expedition. “It is a fact that ‘The West’ was a life-long interest of Thomas Jefferson’s even though he never ventured west of his own Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.” He says that people quickly notice that this film is a complete guide to the entire trail. “The film begins in Virginia and takes them the entire distance, to the mouth of the Columbia River!”

Williams then found the birthplace and boyhood home of Meriwether Lewis, called Locust Hill after the trees in the front yard. “Jefferson’s Monticello is just up the hill,” Robin notes. Williams searched along the river towns near Pittsburgh until he found the people who descend from the man who built the keelboat for Lewis. “We need to fill in all these details if we are going to understand how Meriwether Lewis put this whole thing together.”

Robin discovered a few treasures along the way. “I found the town where Clark met his wife and the original marriage license was still in the files of the local county courthouse.”

“I read the version of the Lewis & Clark journals as prepared by the Center for Great Plains Studies of the University of Nebraska with the co-sponsorship of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. They come in eleven volumes, which include an atlas of maps from the expedition and also the journals of Lewis, Clark, Charles Floyd (the only member to die on the journey), John Ordway, Patrick Gass and Joseph Whitehouse. There is so much interesting material that it easily becomes absorbing. Nothing is boring or lacks vital interest value.”

Out on the trail, “I was able to meet many scholars and members of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation who showed me the exact sites where important events took place on the expedition.” He carries that attention to detail throughout the film. “Wilbur Werner from Cutbank, Montana took me out onto the prairie near the Two Medicine River to show me where Lewis and three men were ambushed by the Indians and managed to survive unscathed.”

Williams explains that “they had to learn Plains Diplomacy very fast. Sacajawea saved their lives countless times by simply traveling with them. A woman with a party of men was a token of peace.”

“Ruth Colter Frick took me along the settler’s cemeteries above the Missouri River to show me where she finally found the grave of her ancestor, John Colter. These cemeteries are on hillocks and are hidden from view. Most of them are in thick forests. She and her brother, Forrest Colter, had searched for John Colter’s grave for 35 years and finally stumbled on it in a clump of trees on a hill near Washington, Missouri.”

John Colter was the member of the expedition who did not return to St. Louis with the Corps of Discovery, but instead joined a couple of trappers and went straight back into the wilderness. He was later credited for his discovery of Yellowstone’s geysers.

Robin says, “People ask me if any of the members of the expedition were shot by the Indians and I have to tell them absolutely not! Lewis took a 54-caliber ball through his hair when a Blackfeet stole his rifle and knelt down to shoot Lewis who was chasing him up a draw. But, the bullet missed him, literally by a hair!” Robin then adds, “Only one member was shot on the expedition and it was Meriwether himself; shot by one of his French Canadian boatmen who was nearsighted. He mistook Lewis for a deer and got him smack in the buttocks. His name was Pierre Cruzatte and he never did admit that it was he who shot the Captain. Lewis probably felt sorry for the mortified Cruzatte and never pressed the matter. But poor Lewis endured a lot of physical pain over that wound for many weeks as they made their way back to St. Louis. The incident took place near the Montana and North Dakota line on their homebound journey.”

Robin likes to equate his own life experiences with that of Meriwether Lewis. Robin explains, “Lewis had successfully made it to the Pacific coast through Indian attacks and buffalo attacks and grizzly attacks, only to be shot in the buttocks by one of his own men who thought he was a deer!... When my life is finally decoded, it will be similar to this event.”