John Colter: The Legend of the First Mountain Man

Back in 1803, I was one of those crazy fools who joined Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their journey across the continent. Back then, every person who knew about our expedition said we were out of our minds. If the natives didnÂ’t kill us, the Spanish would, they said. There was no chance of our being successful. Well, we proved them wrong, didnÂ’t we? We went up that massive Missouri, crossed the mountains, reached the ocean, and then did it all again in reverse. We werenÂ’t killed by the natives and we werenÂ’t killed or enslaved by the Spanish. But when President JeffersonÂ’s famed Corps of Discovery floated back down the Missouri to St. Louis in September of 1806, I wasnÂ’t with them. Nope, I stayed up there in that wild country to make my fortune. What I ended up making was a legend.