Episode 4: La Salle and the Voyageurs

The name La Salle is ubiquitous throughout the United States, with streets, parks, towns, universities, parishes, schools and even counties named for this French explorer. In this episode, “La Salle and the Voyageurs”, we examine the influence of La Salle, as well as interview Reid Lewis, the founder of a 1976-77 reenactment of La Salle’s second expedition journeying from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico.  Rich Gross, a member of the crew tells us what it was like to canoe for 3,300 miles as an 18 year-old student, and we talk with Lorraine Boissoneault, the author of “The Last Voyageurs” about La Salle and this re-enactment of his voyage. René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle is a larger then life figure, and so one cannot devote just one episode to him; this is the first of a two-part podcast on this giant of French and American history, who along with Jacque Marquette and Louis Jolliet, is in the Pantheon of French explorers who opened up the frontier of North America and traveled extensively on in the Great Lakes region Interviewing Rich Gross displaying a hatchet that he made and was used on the La Salle II Expedition. Lorraine’s book about the La Salle II Expedition Reid Lewis at the Elgin Public Museum of Natural History & Anthropology in Elgin, Illinois Lorraine Boissoneault Links to Research and History Documents Biography of La Salle from the Canadian Encyclopedia Biography of La Salle from the Canadian Museum of History Ralph Frese aka: “Mr. Canoe” in Chicago Lorraine Boissoneault, writer & author Elgin Public Museum of Natural History & Anthropology WTTW Chicago Tonight Interview of Lorraine Boissoneault and Reid Lewis, and Cliff Wilson