Lame Bear Speaks
Jack "Lame Bear"
Smith
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
Hesston. 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.
Additional First Person Interpretations
Starting in 2006, Jack added 3 additional historical characters to his
repertoire. Like Charbonneau, each is a first person visit with some of the
men who actually lived and breathed. Audiences can meet, first person, who
saw the growth of the American West first hand.
From Lewis and Clark,
the War of 1812, the rise of the American Fur Trade, the Civil War, the
coming of the Cowboy and of course the effect on the Native American
population. They will even find out what a fine line existed between the Law
and the Lawless.
As Charbonneau ushered us into the period when only a few white European men
had even seen the West; the West of the trapper and the voyager,
Bill Sublette
takes time travelers into the world of the Mountain Men of the American and
Rocky Mountain Fur Companies. They will meet his friends like Jedidiah
Smith, Jim Baker and Jim Bridger. They will see how fortunes were made and
hero and legends were grown and died.
John Wilson Goodbody was a man born into
a time of revolt and war from the Brazos River in the Republic of Texas. He
takes listeners through the years of Civil War as a member of the 8th Texas
Cavalry and Shannon's Scouts. His return to Texas found a land full of
carpetbaggers and cows, but now hard cash. And so "Yulee" Goodbody would
become what he would be for the rest of his life, a Cowboy. Pushing cows to
Montana, fighting Indians, outlaws and the land. He, and the other Cowboys
would be the backbone of cattle industry in Montana. Along the way he would
meet the likes of a young horse wrangler with a puncheon for drawing named
Charles Marion Russell.
Johann Gustav Nachtlinger, A.K.A. Gus
Nightlinger, born in post Civil War Pennsylvania, Gus will serve
in the Army, Chase Apaches, and finally become a Lawman. Along the way he
would also become a professional gambler, marry and raise a family of 5
children in Montana. He meets good guys and outlaws the likes of Tom Horn,
Robert Leroy Parker (Butch Cassidy), Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid),
Wyatt Earp and Harvey Logan (Kid Curry). He'll take you though times when
lawmen were outlaws and outlaws were preachers kids. When boomtowns boomed
and died away.
As with all of Jack's one man shows, audience will see the tools and weapons
of daily life for each and every character.
Jack will travel almost anywhere (no inter-terrestrial bookings at this
time). Ask him about Skype in the Classroom (no travel
expenses for you to cover)!
Feel free to contact us for speaking fees and and booking
dates available.
