Jack "Lame Bear" Smith

Historical Lecturer

Jack Smith has been a lecturer and historic re-enactor for more than 30 years. He specializes in the period of American history from 1700-1850. During his career, he has spoken to more than 25,000 people about this period in our country’s history. Being of a Native American - European heritage, he brings a unique slant to this time. “Walking in two worlds means that you have to be aware that everything you learn has two points of view. That is one reason I have always attempted to look a little farther than the text books to find out what really happened in this country’s past”, says Smith.

During his career, Jack initiated and carried to the California Legislature a bill to honor Jedidiah Smith, famed explorer and mountain man, who with a group of fur trappers became the first Americans to successfully enter California over land from the East in 1826. This bill was successfully passed and today California recognizes “Jedidiah Smith Day” each year.

He has presented living history programs in Montana, California, and Fort Clatsop on the Oregon coast. He has worked as a technical advisor, along with the late Pat Tierny of the Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska, on such films as “Jeremiah Johnson” - starring Robert Redford and “The Mountain Men” - starring Brian Keith and Charlton Heston. He built costumes and props for the movies “Centennial”, “Walks Far Woman”, and “Little Big Man”.

Jack was the original technical advisor for the group which became the “Lewis and Clark Honor Guard”. He appeared with that group for four years, helping to raise money towards the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, which opened in 1998, in Great Falls, Montana.

For more than 20 years, Jack has pursued the study of one man - Toussaint Charbonneau. More than a footnote in history, he has found that the much maligned Charbonneau was a focal character in several facets of the history of the American West, and may well have had his own reasons for being with Lewis and Clark's Corp of Discovery.

Contact Medicine River Trading Company for booking information.

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