The last voyageurs Retracing La Salle's journey across America : sixteen teenagers on the adventure of a lifetime

While most Americans were busy celebrating America's 1976 bicentennial with fireworks and tall ships, a hardy band 16 teenage boys and 7 men were actually re-creating a nearly forgotten part of it: they were reenacting seventeenth-century French explorer La Salle's voyage of discovery from Montreal to the mouth of the Mississippi River. The brainchild of Reid Lewis, an erstwhile Illinois high-school teacher, the trip would last eight months and traverse some 3,300 miles across two countries, three lakes, and five major rivers. The undertaking was epic in the obstacles it had to overcome: weather, the threat of hypothermia, backbreaking portages, illness, accidents, injuries, and such quotidian concerns as fund-raising. But in the end, as Boissoneault writes, personality was everything. It was what divided them and brought them together again. And in this regard, she does a good job of bringing these latter-day voyageurs to individual life. Theirs was not all adventure, however; sometimes it was a slog and, at such times, the book becomes something of a slog, too, but for the most part it moves briskly, nicely capturing the spirit of adventure that underlay this remarkable eight-month expedition.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2016 Booklist

In this action-packed dual narrative, Boissoneault, an editor at the Weather Channel, shares a charming slice of U.S. Bicentennial history. In 1973, Reid Lewis, a high school French teacher, outdoorsman, and historical reenactor, was in his mid-30s and at a career crossroads. Dedicated to education but dismayed by the restrictions of the classroom, he came up with an idea for a high-profile adventure that would honor the Bicentennial while illustrating the benefits of hands-on learning. Lewis chose to reenact an important early American exploration: the 1681 Mississippi River voyage of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Lewis recruited five other teachers, a priest, and 16 teenage boys to represent the original expedition's personnel, and he assembled a support team to help with logistics and publicity for the eight-month trip. There was fund-raising, too; the project cost around $595,000 (about $2.5 million today). All the elements of an exciting adventure story are here. Boissoneault describes interesting, complicated people facing life-threatening perils, and in alternating Lewis's story with that of La Salle's journey, she makes fascinating historical comparisons. Illus. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner Literary Agency. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A parallel narrative of French explorer Ren-Robert Cavelier La Salle's 1680s trek to the mouth of the Mississippi River and an intrepid 1976 journey by a group of Midwestern youth. Swept up in the bicentennial fever, Illinois French teacher Reid Lewis envisioned a dynamic re-enactment project that would focus not on the Revolutionary events in the Northeast but on the role of the 17th-century French explorer in displaying the early American spirit of adventure and determination. In her nicely woven, bifurcated narrative, Chicago-based author Boissoneault, an editor at the Weather Channel, pursues the complicated personalities and logistics that comprised this extraordinarily arduous expedition of 3,300 miles in handmade canoes across two countries, three lakes, and five major rivers. The journey began in Montreal on Aug. 11, 1976, and concluded with a ceremony at the Gulf of Mexico on April 9, 1977. Well ahead of launch, Lewis and a team of teachers and helpers selected their crew of hardy male teenagersas part of the need for authenticity, the team had to mirror the initial all-male crew, with each participant assuming the name and persona of an actual originaland a supporting liaison staff of girlfriends and wives to help them with food and lodging along the way. They also had to raise the huge anticipated cost of $595,000 to fund the project, requiring six specially fabricated canoes, moccasins, beaver skins, and other authentic clothing and equipment, salaries for the teachers, and media attention. From her research into individual stories by the participants, Boissoneault offers a fresh sense of the challenges to the second expeditione.g., avoiding anachronisms (mostly for the press), surviving winter weather, and navigating aggressive personalities. The fluid narrative moves with authority and a sense, like La Salle's original fraught expedition, that anything could disrupt the flow. An engaging travelogue that provides a good example of how one person tirelessly pursued his dream to fruition. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.