Note: Although Mike Venso is currently living in Missouri, he is willing to return to Idaho for presentations. The IHC will accept applications for Venso with the understanding that IHC will pay his honorarium and travel expenses that would be equivalent to his travel if he were still living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Any additional travel expenses would need to be paid by the sponsoring organization.

Rediscovering Lewis & Clark:The Journals of the Corps of Discovery Seen Through Images of Today’s Trail

Rediscovering Lewis & Clark is a historical-documentary photographic project created and carried out by photojournalist Mike Venso. The project aims to tell the story of the Corps of Discovery through their words and modern photographs of the places they described nearly 200 years ago. It also serves as a historical reference to the changes of the landscape the Lewis & Clark Expedition traversed. The program features a 150-image slide presentation that provides a visual overview of the current state of the Lewis & Clark Trail as America prepares to commemorate its 200th anniversary. Throughout the presentation, Venso tells the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and discusses the places along the trail that have changed and those that have remained much the way they were so wonderfully described nearly two centuries ago.

Most of the images and related stories are from the 1998 retracement of the entire length of the trail by Venso and his brother-in-law, Greg Balsmeier. They traveled more than 3,500 miles from the Pacific Ocean to St. Louis by power boat, U.S. Navy Ship, tug/barge, jet boat, logging truck, horseback, 4x4, foot, mountain bike, canoe, train and plane along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.

Tokens of Peace & Friendship: The Indian Peace Medals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

When the Corps of Discovery embarked on their journey across the American West they took a tremendous amount of supplies with them on their nearly 4,000-mile trek. Among those supplies were Indian presents of various and sundry items, and included most notably, silver Indian Peace Medals. The medals were presented to the various chiefs of tribes the Expedition encountered on its journey. They were symbolic of the underlying purpose of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and of the future relationship between the United States and Native Americans.

Tokens of Peace and Friendship will present a primer on the medals carried by the expedition, discuss the discrepancies regarding the quantity and types of medals carried by the Corps of Discovery, explore in detail the medals presented to members of the Nez Perce Nation in 1805 and 1806, describe a few other medals of interest, and discuss the symbolism of these icons of peace and friendship. Citing the published research of Francis Paul Prucha, Baumann Belden, Paul Cutright, Gary Moulton and the ongoing research of Mike Venso, Tokens of Peace and Friendship is scholarly, accurate and visually entertaining. Using color slides and handson replicas, the presentation will be an interactive discussion.

Rites of Discovery: Lewis & Clark Place Names in Idaho

Rites of Discovery is an audio-visual presentation that highlights the exploration of Idaho by the Corps of Discovery and the practice of naming geographic features. The presentation provides insight into the names Native Americans gave to topographic features, the names bestowed by Lewis and Clark, and the modern-day names of these mountains, rivers and landmarks.

By using a combination of historical maps and images of these locations today these place names come alive. Additionally, Clark’s map-making methods and the process of gathering geographic information from the tribes encountered on their journey is also discussed. This program centers on the concept that while the Corps of Discovery were the first white explorers to traverse the West, there were already multitudes of Americans already living there who had given names to these same features. In the years following the Expedition, many of Lewis and Clark’s place names have been wiped off the map as well.