Brain Soda Podcast - Episode 49 - Exploring the NeXT Frontier

Episode Date: January 27, 2024

On this week's episode we're discussing the in between times of Steve Jobs and his NeXT computers, and one of the legendary stories of early America, the Lewis and Clark Expedition!

Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to change the world? Brain soda. It's the Brain Soda Podcast. I, as always, am your host Kyle, joined by my co-host and cohort Brad. How's it going? Today, we're going to be talking about the Lewis and Clark expedition. But first, Brad, I don't want the before computer. The before computer? I don't even want the now computer.

Which one do you want then? Today we're gonna be talking about next computer. Okay, I have not heard of that. Well, I've heard you reference this before, but I don't know much about it. Tell me more. So, Brad, I'm gonna take you to a garage in California in the 70s.

Okay. Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and another guy, Ronald Wayne, all formed a company that you may know of today as Apple. Okay. But this story is obviously not about Apple, it's about Next. So, Brad, how do you co-found a company that then becomes like one of the most innovative

and important companies in all of business in less than a decade and become forced out of your own company within that decade. Probably by being a f*** I would assume. And you know. Or by taking your company if you like take it somehow. Maybe a little bit of both of those things but maybe neither of those things because one of the things I wanna get across here is that the Apple II at the point that we're gonna pick up this story, we're gonna drift out of that beautiful little garage

in California, right? And before we pick back up to Steve Jobs, let's remember something really fast. Steve Wozniak is the guy who made the Apple II. And the Apple II up at the point that we're about to pick up on is still the most lucrative Apple product. Like not now, right?

But up until that point. At the time we're about to pick up our store. Okay, okay. Because in 1983, obviously that was like pretty much the running market machine for them. They were coming out with the Lisa at this point in that cold open. I said a quote that Steve Jobs said to a guy who was the CEO of Pepsi, John Scully. And eventually two years later, John Scully and Steve Jobs will become

kind of embroiled in an argument that will divide them so much so that the board of directors will have to choose if they side with Jobs, if they side with Scully, and ultimately Steve Jobs will resign and form next computer. See, like, I never knew that Steve Jobs and this next computer stuff. So, like, did anybody else from Apple leave with him? Or, because I know he left Apple. You know, I didn't know what he did in between that before he came back with the iPhone and all that. The Jobs-led team, four machines like the Lisa and the Macintosh, which we're about to talk about, was a team called Super Micro. When he left in form next, he went and grabbed, I believe it was seven, but we'll say unspecified numbers of select super micro staff when he formed next.

So he did kind of like, you know, grab a few of that. No, he definitely, he definitely was like, I'm taking some of my people. Now, part of the reason- Well, I mean, and it probably wasn't even like, I'm taking them, he probably was like, hey, you want a job They're probably yeah, I'll go over and you know work for you. Well, and I do want to say this

I didn't write any of this down But during my research one of the things I made a note of to bring up is that you know when we talk about? Silicon Valley or at least like when it's Stereotyped in media or in common lexicon discussion, right? Like, and we talk about these expansive, competitive benefits packages. Bro, late late 80s, this guy's kind of offering them. Like, he's looking to give expanded health coverage to unmarried couples, same-sex couples, and multiple other different things that you know i was like wow yeah yeah dude like he was a legit pretty cool employer from everything you can tell this was in the late eight right now to be fair you know you got pushed out back then i thought it was like the nineties in the mid eight really is it is okay five that he gets pushed out and that's kind of what I was trying to circle back to.

Because what happens is Wozniak's Apple II really does lead Apple as a company. Now mind you, personal computing at this point is not what you think it is. For maybe the elder states, women or men in our audience, right? Windows 95, perhaps perhaps maybe like your most common recollection or 92 maybe even, right? This predates even that and if you are familiar with

DOS, right? Command line code, that is how most computing, even personal computing, was done by this point. This is the very late 70s, 78, 77, somewhere in there, right? That's the original Apple II and things like that. Now, once Apple blows up in that market, starts to really kind of be emerging and they're competing against long time standing companies like IBM, Tandy, and so on and so forth, Jobs is the guy kind of heading the ship. And with a computer like Lisa, it really is super

innovative and absolutely amazing. Released in 1983, this machine is crazy, but it's so expensive that it's only marketed to small the medium businesses. So an Apple II in 77 at like regular composition because again a lot of computers were very modular. You're getting like a board and some switches and lights and stuff like that right? Like you're not getting a built-in box PZ. And that's an innovation we're gonna talk about later. But for now, that machine would cost you about 1300 bucks at that times money, right?

1977. That'd be like, yeah, like $10,000, $15,000 at least now, for sure, that's crazy. And mind you, these do not have a lot of business applications and **** like that. These for the most part are hobbyists. But that's like that's really like. Those are the innovators though, a lot of these people. Yeah, that's what really like. Right. Because I know Microsoft, that was like, yeah, a bunch of like hobbyists like came together

with different software and stuff. I knew that. Yeah. All of these guys, that is why WAS developed a computer and then they sold it because there were tons of people who wanted or were tentatively doing or thinking about or reading about doing like this. And Apple were people who were selling it to you out of the box. Here's a machine you could around with right? I mean, honestly, that's the way it's always been presented to me and I've always just seen the appeal as these early early model computers the Apple 2 being maybe

the most prominent amongst them. Yeah. But to move on when we're talking about the Apple Lisa how much do you think this thing would cost $2,000 higher. Five higher in 70s money 83 $10,000 $9,995 that's insane hold on adjusting for inflation that would cost maybe like around $30,000 today find you again this was mostly marketed to and sold to individual to medium-sized businesses. So it wasn't supposed to be just a regular run of the mail personal computer, but it's a $10,000 computer in 1983. It depends on what you need it for

because I will say there's certain things, like certain places need that type of stuff and they will spend, even now. No, absolutely. Look, hey, if a $10,000 purchase of a Lisa computer in 1983 can make you $10 million by 1993 and you don't do it. Exactly. Like stocks and stuff like that. Yeah. You can't blame anybody but you for not making that decision and getting ahead of that curve. I understand that aspect. But one of the things I want to get at about this is that like,

this is overall an industry and a story that I've been wanting to come back to since what episode 8 when we talked about Yahoo, right? Like that is such an interesting story and with this, the thing that I found to be as interesting about it is that at this point in 1983, this guy makes a computer that fails. It's literally part of the reason why this guy is going to lose his own company one of the most important companies in all of Modern civilization maybe history overall this computers one of the first out of the box built PCs It's one of the firsts with a gooey if you don't know what that is It's a graphical user interface

So when you look at your computer and see a start button and files and folders and things like that, that is that. Being able to interact with it. This predates the Macintosh, which is the modern advent of that for most people in personal computing. And even that was kind of middling and having a lot of issues with its price point of $2,500. Okay, it's a little cheaper. Well, and mind you, that's the actual personal computer and that comes out a year later. But the problem with it is that like, one of the things I found as a common criticism is that it's considered overconfident in design. Now, while I can't necessarily quantify that directly, I will give you some examples of how it really wasn't competitive against Tandy and IBM machines because it wasn't as modular and expandable

to a certain extent. It didn't even have full color and to a certain extent there were elements of the Apple II that exceeded the Macintosh. Yet for a lot of people, the Macintosh is so well-beloved and known as a machine, and there is a lot of architecture and inner workings to it. That makes it kind of like a modern marvel for that company and early computing as we know it today. Yeah, it is definitely like, I've seen it many times. It's the one that's just like a screen. It's one of the old like screens, right? It is an all in one unit box. Yeah. And then I think the monitor box

with the floppy drive and keyboard are all in one and the mouse joins off the base of both. Okay. Right? Yeah. So around this point though, Jobs is not the CEO of his company, Scully is. And he went and headhunted

Scully and chose him from Pepsi to be the CEO of his company. Now, as a co-founder, leader of these teams, Steve Jobs had significant pull for several different things. And even during his development of the Macintosh though, like you're saying in Apple, even though he wasn't. Even though he was the co-founder, he was not the CEO. Thus his power was limited, right? As an example, during his development of the Macintosh, a biochemist professor named Paul Berg approached jobs looking for a specified workstation for higher education purposes. It is a 3M machine.

Can you tell me what a 3M machine is, Brad? I can tell you 3M is like this giant company that makes everything. No, 3M is not like somebody who makes tape and several different other common household items and things like that. No, 3M in this instance stands for one megabyte of RAM, one megaflop of performance, which I believe means one million instructions per second.

I believe that's what one megaflop is. Megaflop, that just sounds funny. And one megapixel display. Okay. Now, by this point, Jobs is really, really interested in this. And mind you, many school systems already had Apple computers in their libraries and things like that. Like, even when I was in college studying to do things just like this, I got a discount on my Apple computer. So I don't know exactly 110% Stur, but we will see in this story that like at the very least for Steve Jobs, the

access of information technology to students was like a key part, even of his business model. Okay. So, okay, I'm kind of, where does next come into this? Once he gets fired because... Oh, he wasn't CEO anymore. Like he didn't get fired. He just got stepped out from CEO. I don't even really think he was ever CEO. Okay. Because there's another guy who had this role of CEO before John Scully. He went and found John Scully because John Scully fixed Pepsi. Okay. And he's like, yo, you fix Pepsi. You need to come here and help me topple over IBM.

And that's one thing I wanted to get into before we talk about him getting fired is before he releases the Macintosh. And it's actually kind of a famous Apple speech. He like takes the time to talk about from the 50s until present day, all these different things have come to kind of surpass IBM, this giant in the field over and over and over again from Xerox to Apple themselves and so on and so forth, right? And I want to come back to that later and I think you'll see why. But moving on from there, because of the like, you know, middling success that you could consider the Lisa and the Macintosh, Jobs eventually sets the stage and it comes between the board of directors to choose between himself and

Scully of who is in power, who is in charge of Apple. They choose to go with Scully and thus Nexus found it. Now, in Nexus Foundation, we go back to that pitch from Berg because the next computer, as it was initially named and offered to the public as a computer workstation, is a 3M machine and built to be exactly that. Stan Mallow So like, did Apple have a 3M machine? Was the Macintosh 3M? Marshall T. Stan Mallow No, I don't believe the Macintosh was 3M, although I do believe he was pushing technologies

to get as close to that as possible and was really intrigued in the idea. This is really where he sets out to do so and they do accomplish it. At a price tag of $6,500 in its release year of 1988. Let's then... They're f**king insane, dude! One thing you exactly and again, these are also workstations. So they could be used in a classroom.

They could be using a whole yes. They could be using a whole workplace. But this is a guy who a lot of his machines were able to be purchased and play Prince of Persia like that. To now being like, you have to spend $6,500 to be in like, maybe some of the most prestigious universities in the world to be able to access these machines. Well, I mean, like, it is definitely a lot.

Electronics are one of the few things that to have come down at a price because like, it was just the technology wasn't there. Like even TVs and everything works more expensive back then. You know, like, no, you're absolutely right. So it came out at $6,500 at 88, and it shifted limited quantities to higher education customers, right? But like where the break really comes from this company.

And in my mind, I will say some of this is going to be opinionated. What keeps these guys afloat to a certain extent is $100 million that gets floated into them by Canon because Canon wants to use their operating system to make object stations. Object stations are their work stations for Canon photography. The other big win for these guys comes from a company called Businessland. Businessland is like a circus city office default but essentially a lot of the money that they were making were from reselling computers, but they had just

had a falling out with Compact, who they were selling live actual units of in stores, right? They had a falling out and what would have been a $22 million loss for Business Land kind of became the big avenue in Stepping Stone for NEXT to try to market itself out a little bit better. And even immediately after it's released, they discontinued the NEXT computer. It's an initial release to come out with the NEXT station and the NEXT cube. So if you've ever heard or seen a NEXT computer at all,

these may be the ones that you've seen and their price points are a bit more competitive. So a next cube would cost you about eight G's seven seven thousand nine hundred ninety five dollars. Right. That's how much a next cube would have cost you. Oh, okay. Like a thousand or two less.

That's crazy. But that is that is just literally different design model, I think, with some better specs and stuff as well. It's the next station that really is the competitive price point different design model, I think, with some better specs and stuff as well. It's the next station that really is the competitive price point because it's $4,995. Okay, so still, let's see. Now mind you, within this price period,

if you were to get a compact running, let's say Windows 92, how much do you think you'd spend? About a thousand to $2,000. Right, so like. So it's always been like the more expensive option because like. Macintosh is usually as well, I would say. If you were to go out and try to buy a Mac PC.

Oh yes, I'm sorry. Like Steve Jobs, I guess, has always offered the more expensive item, I should say. But it's always trying to be like the cutting edge. When you look at the specs for these machines, they're not f***ing around either. They are quality capable machines. I think this is a really interesting point in Steve Jobs' life. It doesn't get enough attention or enough play and it's so interesting to know that like this guy lost his own company

and bounces it back and realistically, when we come into 1990, they're trying to compete with IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and all these other guys. And like, this is kind of a crazy figure, man. By 1992, they've sold over $140 million with product. Isn't that crazy? I mean, yeah, but yeah. That's only 20,000 units. I was about to

say probably not much. Yeah. And when you look at like what Dell and Compaq and several other manufacturers are making around that time, it's peanuts. So by 93, they kind of reevaluate where they are in the tech field overall and in general, and they make a pivot. They fire like three-fifths of the workforce and they focus on their software. Because one of the mainstays in sales and what's actually kind of really kept the company going is next step, open step. The operating systems brings out

customer basis from businesses. As a matter of fact, we're gonna talk about a software in a little bit. They had a price tag of $50,000. Well, software, yeah. It was widely used and became well more widely used when purchased by Apple because ultimately in 93 they make this shit and the company is still kind of profitable. They team up with another company called Sun and they make the software called WebObjects, right?

Now, mind you, the next step and open step softwares have really been beneficial, again, to businesses and things like that. It's customizable, works really well. The thing is, WebObjects is realistically like one of the very early things that made dynamic web pages. And it keeps next in lexicon, at least in the tech industry, that by 1997, for $427 million, 1.5 of which happened to be Apple stock. Apple buys next. Really? So like with Steve Jobs coming back?

Or? Yeah, Steve Jobs at this point, this point is like the chairman and CEO of Next Computer and becomes the advisor at this point. And honestly, man, because I've been so interested in kind of getting the business in tech, I think eventually we're gonna kind of cover his claim to the position of CEO of Apple.

Yeah, that would be cool. Then like, man, that's crazy. I didn't even know about this period of his life. So that's really cool. But like, yeah, yeah, man. And it was, it was really crazy for me to kind of look at part of the site. I knew in the extent to the timeline that I was working off of, like, if you notice, we didn't bring up Bill Gates. And that's because this is really when he's amassing a lot of his empire, because at the beginning of the story, like, a little bit after the point that we're talking about the Steve's developing the Apple computers, right?

And developing the company itself, he just becomes one of the biggest software developers. A couple of years later, by the end of the story, he's on track to being one of the richest men in the world. Yeah, man. And like, I mean, they really like explored like new, like territories of technology and stuff. It was the new frontier of American business, I would say, man.

Yes, for sure. And the same way, too, for Lewis and Clark, kind of, because the Louisiana purchase that started it all. I mean, it wasn't government funded like Lewis and Clark was. But yeah, that's going to do it. What do you know about, like, most people know about the Lewis Clark, at least Americans. It's the so the Louisiana purchase and the manifest destiny of Western expansion in American history, right? Pretty much. Yeah. It was Thomas Jefferson,

like wanting to see the new land essentially. And you know, and see if there was a Northwest passage too. That was a big thing. Wait. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember hearing that all the time. Be in like in grade school and hearing that all the time. But like, yeah, because that like if you had that, they were trying to find something that went like traverse the entire United States and that right. It ain't working like that, buddies. Yeah. You know, the Rocky Mountains block it off. There's something called the continental divide, which is the right Rocky Mountains. Right. And like that's where all the river systems separate. You know, there's two different river systems. Yeah, they all kind of break off of that bedrock point at the tip of the mountain. Yeah. Not the tip, but like where the formation and. Well, yeah, through those mountain ranges, exactly.

Yeah, the Lucent Park expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery was a cartography and exploration mission set forth by the United States government, like we said. And it was done to explore the newly acquired land from the Louisiana Purchase. And this Louisiana Purchase, I would like to actually like talk about Napoleon one day, but that'd be like, I don't know, it would have to be like just one specific part of Napoleon's life, because it's crazy. You know, maybe in a special, we might do that something like...

Can we do the movie? I heard the movie's crazy. The way, you know, maybe in a special, we might do that. Something like, we do the movie. I heard the movie's bad. The recent movie. Who gives a, we get to dunk on it, baby. Oh! Possibly. This Louisiana Purchase, we purchased an area of land from France, which actually they didn't even really

control that area for very long. Like Spain actually controlled the area for a bit of time. But, yeah, that whole area was like very unexplored. Like it just was like traders and trappers, you know, like they just like random people like I lay claim to this and no, I lay claim to this. Right. That's why I like, because they needed to go out there because it wasn't really mapped.

Well, wait, hold on. Before we get ahead of ourselves, what about the indigenous Americans? Really quick. Well, what about that? We will talk about that. And really quick? Well, okay. What about that? We will talk about that. And actually. I know we will, but. One thing which is kind of funny is I wanted to talk about the Western Native American tribes. Like that was one of the first things I wrote down on our list. And I still am going to because like I'm not covering up nearly as deep as it should be, you know.

Right. Because really I'm just gonna be like, they encountered these guys in that podcast. Again, that is something there should be. If there's not, there should be whole podcasts about them. Exactly. But like Lewis and Clark is very involved with that. And like, well, you know, when I do cover them, we'll touch on Lewis and Clark.

Sacajawea. Yes. But so yeah, the Louisiana Purchase was for $15 million at the time, which was, you know, it's a lot, man, but you got to think this is like pretty much the center of the United States. It's from the Mississippi over to the Rockies, essentially. But that's only $18 per square mile.

So like you got to think like that. In the eighties. In the eighties. Even at that time, like that is, you know, it's a lot of money, but for a government, it's not that much. That happened in 1803. And like at the time, Thomas Jefferson was the president at the time.

And he wanted to know about like the land even before this purchase. So like he was eyeing this before he was even president. You know, like he's always had this idea. Well, I mean, realistically, even if you didn't want to try to move into it, you probably better know a lot about it. President Jefferson, he needed to have

a leader of the sex mission, and he actually had kind of a close friend and previously a secretary to his administration, Mary Weather Lewis, that he picked to do this. And Lewis began preparing and set off to fulfill Philadelphia in early 1803. So before they settled, the Louisiana Purchase, he was already getting ready and preparing to go. Right, right. And while he was there, he took like a bunch of classes,

like a crash course, you know, in medicine, botany, zoology, celestial tracking. He was like reading the diaries and maps of like people like trappers. Right. Let me pick up as much as I can. Let me be the Swiss Army knife right now. Yeah, exactly. And that's smart. And honestly, dude, that's the smartest thing you could do because like you could be totally prepared in one aspect and then be completely blindsided by it. Exactly. Yeah, because like you need to be like an all, you know, like all around person, like you know how to do like traveling and foraging and hunting. Well actually you know like they didn't really have to forge much. In June of

1803 so like this is I think after the purchase I actually didn't write down the exact date of the purchase but Jefferson authorized a co-commander of the mission and Lewis chose his ex-commanding officer William Clark and that's you know the Clark of the expedition. Right. And even though he did serve under Lewis in the past and like Lewis did promise to him to share the command, even though that like, like I said, Jefferson didn't intend for that to be that way. Lewis was like, no, we're gonna share it because like you want to look yeah, yeah, because

Clark was really good on the river. He was a good geographer and a cartographer to like a map maker. So did he limit his learnedness in those things and then telegraph that in choosing Clark? No, he was already like pretty pretty well rounded. Lewis was too, you know, they went off on their own did their own things a lot and stuff like they both needed to be like experts in these things. And it's crazy that not like there was barely any injuries or deaths

or anything. Yeah. Really? Okay. So they sat out on July 5th or Lewis did on July 5th, 1803 with 10 others on a 55 foot barge and they floated down the Ohio River and met Clark and 30 others in Indiana. And they got close to the mouth of the Missouri and that's the Missouri is like pretty much what they were on up until the Rocky Mountains, essentially. And they set up winter quarters at the mouth of it. And from there, after they had prepared and everything, they set off on May 14th, 1804.

That was the, I guess the official start date of the expedition. And so they started up the Missouri River. So they're going against the stream the entire time. If I'm not, you know, they're going upstream of the Missouri River the So they're going against the stream the entire time. If I'm not, you know, they're going upstream of the Missouri River the entire time, which is just crazy to think about. Like, I guess they just they just rode constantly. I don't know. It's just crazy, man. They would have to rhythmically roll. And I mean, I guess you could like, try to

go against tide and things that are not against tide but like yeah but not on a river doesn't it die down it doesn't die down at all you don't lose an inch or two of water between night and day cycles yeah you definitely do but it's not like uh you know the ocean is so so as they were traveling though they saw lots of fur traders so already though like like they're already kind of unexplored territory at this point you know like they're just kind of out in unexplored territory at this point. You know, like, they're just starting off on their expedition and they're in unexplored. Like, yes, traders and trappers and stuff have been out there, but like, this is not something that, you know,

the civilized people over out East, yeah. The natives were, they weren't savages, you know, like that was a civil, they were, it was a different kind of civilization. Absolutely they were. Yeah, so they're traveling up this stuff and they're seeing these fur traders and they're going like 15 to 20 miles a day canoeing.

That's great. Like they came prepared. They came equipped. Like I said, not much happened to them except on August 20th, Sergeant Charles Floyd, he was a 22 year old from Kentucky. He died. It was probably from a peritonitis

which is like an inflammation of the stomach, you know So like it may be something happened. I thought you were talking about like some sort of parasite and I'm like, oh, no No, well me and maybe I don't know, you know like cuz they don't know it sounded like it's a name I just imagine that like just at the start of the voyage somebody dies of like a stomach ache Oh, that would just any little stomach ache for the rest of this voyage guys of like a stomach ache. Man, that would just any little stomach ache for the rest of the voyage. Yeah, it was the only death

throughout the whole entire expedition that happened. How many days in is this? August 20th, so they left on May, which was like, what? Three months in, three months in. So like, yeah. The Missouri River, yeah. Like even though like it was just like traders and trappers around there, it was pretty well.

It was more like, it was more about confirming of like what traders and trappers around there. It was pretty well, it was more about confirming what traders and trappers said versus exploring the area. The area was pretty well known at that point, in this area. Right. And the other thing about it is too, is like you said, cartography. They're probably mapping out the whole riverbed and all the adjacent communities they can find with it. Yes, exactly. The Riverbed and the communities which is another thing. The primary purpose was expedition, you know, to discover the area and to make friends with any of the Native Americans. So they it was a friendly mission. They were supposed to tell them a peace expedition. Yeah, they were supposed to say they're supposed to promise any Native Americans they saw. They're supposed to promise them military protection and trade perks in return for peace to any tribe you know so like maybe this is why I lean more towards Jefferson in the

forefathers debate I don't man it's so hard so the first natives they encountered were uh and excuse me I'm gonna mess these up but a lot of these I'm gonna say the Otos and the Missourius. The Missourius, I'm pretty sure that's how you say that. On August 3rd, 1804, near present day Omaha, Nebraska, and those tribes were open to an alliance and they wanted protection from their northern neighbors, which were the Lakota or the Teton Sioux. And the Lakota and like the Lakota Sioux, like that, there's a big history with that,

which again, I wanna talk about these Western tribes someday, the wars and that, there's a big history with that, which again, I want to talk about these western tribes someday. The wars and everything, it's just crazy. But the Tenten Sioux, they tried to stall the expedition. You know, like they came up over like, hey, you can't go into our territory and all that. But the groups like artillery and their guns, they started, they saw that and they were like, all right, we're not gonna start. But like, it almost like ended the expedition actually. Right, because you can't have a peace force just suddenly start warring with some faction because I hey this is like land like it is their land exactly Yeah, so they continue down and they traveled up to the knife river

Which is like you know a tributary of the Missouri and they settled down there for the winter. And this was in October of 1804. And there they call it Fort Menden. I don't know if they established a fort there or not, but that's what it's called. And while there though, like there was, it was like a meeting spot. Like this spot was like a meeting spot for like the French, the British, the Spanish, the natives, you know, like, because like this was kind of in the middle of the northern part of the country, which is where like all these different territories connected, like the British had control of Canada. So like while there, there was independent trader there named Toussaint Charbonneau, and he

offered up his services to them as like as an interpreter, because he like, many years with a local tribe named the Hedatsas, and through that, you know, he learned a bunch of different languages, or a couple different languages, actually. He was a good companion, you know you learned a bunch of different languages or a couple different languages actually. He was a good companion you know like a good friend everything but like he wasn't very useful like to do what he said he was gonna do you know. However his wife a local Lemhi Cheshony girl named Saka Joella was pretty useful to them and I'm sure you've heard of her you know this is like one of actually the most famous women, I would say, in American history. Right. Yeah, that's true. The crazy thing is though, is that like she really like, I mean, she wasn't important, but she wasn't as important as like

the legend has it. And she was only 16 when this started. I thought it was 14. But yeah, I was going to say she's crazy young though. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know she was 16,, no. Yeah. Right. Exactly. I don't know. She was 16, but still. Yeah. Yeah. She was abducted from her tribe by the Hedatsas four years before that. She was 12. And that's when I don't know if you saw it, you know, like was that was when he like married her or whatever. But yeah, so she was 12 year old when she got abducted. And, you know, like, I don't know, maybe. They didn't say if it was like, it probably wasn't a, you know, like a mutual connection of husband and wife.

I think especially because Tucson had more than one. Ape Ray, Tidon. Yeah, exactly. She was also pregnant though when they first met her. And in February of 1805, so like, you know, as winter continued on, she had a son named John Batiste Charbonneau. And she took him through the entire expedition.

I was gonna say it, he marched on with them. Yeah, he went on to be like a frontiersman and all that. It's crazy. So yeah, like I said though, like legend has it that she guided them for the entire trip and all that. And like really, like she didn't know a couple local languages like her language which helped out later on and also you know like the local language too. But like she really other than like being able to point them the right way a few times

and like translating a few times like she wasn't like the guide that they make her out to be. like she wasn't like the guy that they make her out to be. Well, and perhaps the legend kind of comes less from the number of times than the importance of them, or maybe like you said, it is more when faced first the truth or the legend print the legend. Right. They set off in March and they left the barge like they had that that barge the whole entire time and they left that and used dugout canoes and they set the barge, like they had that barge the whole entire time. And they left that and used dugout canoes and they set that barge back with a bunch of like geological botanical and ethnological samples. So ethnological meaning like, you know,

natives and stuff like that. Or not actual natives, but you know, natives things, should I say. Right, things of native culture. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so they set off and they arrived at Yellowstone in April of 1805 and man, someday I'm gonna go there. I know it's like it is the most iconic place and there's a couple places around it that are like less well known that are just as cool, but. Um, jellystone.

Yeah, well, like the jellystone where a Yogi bears? Like the Jellystone? Where are Yogi Bears? Yes, Jellystone is where are Yogi Bears. Yes. Yellowstone though was unknown to Europeans at this time. So like, man, just imagine being like one of the first people to see that geysers. Yeah. Oh man, that's kind of crazy. Yeah. Because like this whole time, like as I'm reading through this, by the way, my source this time was lewis-.org just it's like you know the foundation for them and like a suit packed full of information And like man some of the description is like of like just the herds. They saw it everything man

It's just crazy. So as they went through that they continue not and by late May they finally had sight of the Rocky Mountains I mean it was very far away But you know that's when they first caught sight of the Rocky Mountains. I mean, it was very far away, but you know, that's when they first caught sight of the Rocky Mountains. Right. Yeah. Like three miles is the most you can see. I say, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, like they had to go through like the Northern Great Plains, you know, like the Great Plains extends way down pretty much through the entire U.S. or, you know, up vertically. The Heartland, right? Yeah. But like the Northern Great Plains, they went through, like they went through like Montana, North Dakota and stuff like that, you know, like, so they started going through the Great Plains and went through like they went through like Montana North the Dakotas and stuff like that You know so they started going through the Great Plains and the Missouri River and that's when they started seeing all this

Wildlike they saw just like crazy of herds of deer and elk and buffalo and geese and ducks and like just Beavers is anything you can think of you know like tons of tons of animals like nothing that is around today Like when all these people went west, like again, another subject, they just killed all these herds. Like we did, we have buffalo, and like the deer and elk and stuff too. Like, I mean, like there was just huge herds of all these animals that just are not there anymore,

especially the buffalo though for sure. So like they had no shortage of food for most of the time. Like, we're killing plenty. It was reported like they would give like eight pounds of meat a day. They were saying eight pounds of meat per person a day. Like what are you even doing that? That's insane dog.

When they get up in the Rockies, like obviously they're not as, the food doesn't make sense actually to me. Cause it's like, if you're eating that luxuriously, like you just shoot a gun out and like just not even aim and shoot a gun and kill something. How are you not packing to go up with the Rockies?

Like they almost ran out of food a few times. It's like, what are you guys doing? I don't know. Scarce game though, that might be part of it too, bro. Well, maybe because they're like so used to like, oh, we're just gonna have a game like this like crazy. So they didn't even think the same. That's the thing probably was, yeah.

One thing about that was they reached an untold fork in the Missouri, right? So there was, you know, like most of it, like they would talk to the natives and say, the natives would be like, oh yeah, there's this river up here, this river up there. This one no one told them about.

So they separated. This is one of the times where they separated and they both went up like 10 miles to sea. And Lewis ended up going up this river that was called the Marias, or he ended up calling it Marias that was called the Marias or he ended up calling it Marias after his cousin realized that it wasn't the correct course like just by the way that it was like oh you know it's going too

far north they didn't want to go north they want to go west yeah it looks like it makes a weird loop in it too it's weird like it doesn't go up like very far north or so all it does is it comes up towards like almost the very northmost part of what this map shows is Louisiana air quote right that's Lewis's track and we'll get why that yes exactly they came back and they decided for you know they know rivers and stuff like that because all this stuff right remember the term nope this is the wrong way it's not just because it was going north there's other indications there's another time when this happened so they did have to lug their canoes around some waterfalls though, around

this point. And it took a month of time to do that. So it really cut in. And during that, it was like perilous, man. It was one of the most perilous times because they like, there's tons of storms and they had to go through this prickly pear cactus. There's rattlesnakes, mosquitoes and like grizzly bears. There was tons of grizzly bears around too, I guess, which is crazy because grizzly bears were not around that area now. Oh, I could just imagine to see what America was like before. Like it was, I don't know, decimated by us. So they finally reached the Rockies and they went up the Lemhi pass, which lies

it like on the Montana Idaho border. And there is where they finally encountered the Shoshone people, which I'm pretty sure that's how you say. Yeah, I know that I've heard that before. Yeah, yeah, because exactly. Yeah. And that was Sacajaweas tribe, right? So like, I don't know. I didn't read about like if she like, you know,

met with her old family and everything, but maybe she did. I hope so. That's what I hope. Her and Lady Liberty are the two like big, you know like back in the day like in the 1800s and stuff There's she inspire Columbia. Maybe it's Columbia. Yes, that's sorry exactly. They like she inspires Columbia. Thank you for my Yeah, your mother is gonna be a learner out there too listeners exactly So but the Shoshone though they did promise to help them and they were able to help the team navigate through the Rockies. Because of that, it was made a lot easier. Like they made it through the Rockies I think in like 11 days or something. Wow.

And the Shoshone, they gave them 29 horses and a bunch of guides to help them. And with that, they started up through the Rockies and out of the range, like the main Rocky range through like a minor mountain range called the Bitter Roots. And into the Bitter Root Valley and out of the low like the main Rocky range through like a minor mountain range called the Bitter Roots and into the Bitter Root Valley and out of the low low pass. Okay. I remember whenever I was reading this stuff man there was like 50 different place names and I'm like I am not gonna name all these place names. It sounds like you're reading Tolkien. Exactly. Yeah. It did seriously and I'm like all right like I mean people that are local local, you know, but oh yeah, sure, you know. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Even so, it's crazy to think there's like little passes through mountains. I mean, obviously there would be, but to find them, lower areas, lowlands you can find, and valleys. There was a river system there, though. They were looking for the Columbia River, actually, speaking of Columbia.

Hey. Yeah. They wanted to look for tributaries of that to get to the Columbia River, actually, speaking of Columbia. Hey. Yeah, like they want to look for tributaries of that to get to the Columbia. Because now, like now they're over the Rockies, there was some, like, you know, trade was done over already. There was some like, you know, civilization a little bit,

not much on the Western side, you know? But it comes up around. Well, like we were saying, there's fur trappers, there's fishermen. If you're able to do those things and keep yourself in place You're able to probably make some sort of a network to somebody else who can yeah, it's like Mexico and things like that exactly Right. It was very sparsely though, you know, absolutely. Yeah at that time Yeah, that river system all like the crew were saying like let's take it let's take it

You know, but the captain's especially Lewis was like no, I don't think we should take it because I think there's waterfalls up ahead. And the reason why he thought that was because there was no salmon in the river because the waterfalls, they wouldn't be able to get up it. Yeah. Which is crazy. Like that's so, like that's what I mean. Like this type of like knowledge. And so they instead went by land and it was treacherous like to go through that area.

That was when like game was sparsearse and after 11 days, they started running the out of food or running short on food. Well, you got to think all those waterways that can feed all those ecosystems in that adjacent land area. There's a waterfall. They can't put them as much. So now game is more. Exactly.

Finally, they come out onto the Weepee, the W-E-I-P-P-E, Weepee prairie, where they met a group of Nez Pierce Indians. And these are one of them that I do want to talk about. So thankfully, the Nez Pierce were friendly and they offered food to them. If they weren't friendly, they kind of screwed at that point. And they met up with the Clearwater River, which led to the Snake River, which fed into the Columbia River. And so like through these, you know, they just, uh, river to river to river. And they had to actually eat dogs while they were traveling through there, which they purchased from the natives because at that area, there wasn't much game.

Like it was more like forested area and stuff like that. You know, it wasn't these prairies that, you know, this game like Rome, like where the buffalo roam. But the Columbia at the time, which it isn't like it nowadays, but it was full of rapids and rough water. So like it was pretty choppy for the rest of the ride there. Now there's a bunch of dams. So the, it's like slowed down a lot and there's not like as many

rapids and things like that. So yeah, they navigated the Columbia all the way through Oregon to the Pacific essentially. While traveling there, they encountered tons of Native American tribes. This is another one that they listed, like a Tolkien type thing. They were like, they've got this one and that one

and this one and that one. Like I'm like, all right, they encountered a ton of them. Most of them were nice, but there were some that were like, oh, you're coming through our territory, you gotta pay the toll, you know? So they were like, it kind of stopped by a few of them. And on the way back, they were to pay the tolls to get through their territory. So they have finally arrived on the Pacific on November 7th, 1805. And so like that's what, you know, almost about a year, right? Not even that or a year and a half. And they camp there though.

So like, obviously, they're not going to start making their way back in November. They camped there on the north side of the Columbia River for the winter. And it was kind of a crappy winter. Right. Right. They did like, they kind of, you know, gathered all the materials and all that. And they figured out on the return trip, Lewis was going to explore that river again, that Maria's River. You see what I just see, like maybe that was the Northwest patches, right? Maybe it went up like we didn't go farther enough north. Maybe did curvy. So, they plan to meet back at the confluence of the Missouri and the Yellowstone River. I guess there's a Yellowstone River in August of

1806. I didn't know that was there as well. But yeah, it's interesting, man. And that almost does kind of seem like it could be the Northwest. Yeah. Because it cuts through a number of what are shown to be modern day states. Yeah. Because it cuts through a number of what are shown to be modern day states. Yeah. Because if you want to know, yeah, yeah. Exactly. But that Northwest point, right? Of like, I don't know. So yeah, so they go back through, you know, like they pretty much stay together until the Rockies again. They met back up with the Nespiers and they had this like, you know, like that the Nespiers to save their horses for them to get through the mountains. Okay. So as

they travel back near the Snake River, they stopped and feasted with like several hundred Indians from the Walla Walla tribe and the Yakamas tribes. I just, I love Indian days, man. Like Michigan has a lot of them. Yeah. They're just cool days, man. Yeah. Well, Walla Walla is one of the few Washington cities I would know. Really?

Walla Walla Washington. I'm gonna probably do the Northwestern Indian tribes kind of soon. I think. Yeah. That'd be cool. Yeah. So, like, but they did. Yeah, strengthen the relationships with those tribes and stuff like that. Right. Because I think a lot of those tribes, like, they did stick around. They're still around. Like, it might be kind of like communities out here were at the very least the naming has kind of been integrated into the

culture. Exactly. Like I said, they went that together towards the Rockies and when they arrived there, they met the Nespiers again and the Nespiers had held onto their horses for them so they could get back up through the Rockies. So nice of them to do that. For real though. Exactly, yeah. They got over the Rockies almost twice as fast

as they originally went over. So like, yeah, cause like they knew the area, they had a better route to, you know, all that. Yeah. And that's when they split up, though, at the base of the mountains is when they split up. And Clark had easy going back. Like Clark, he just like took the Missouri back and now that he's going with stream, you know, like downstream. So like he just, yeah, he was making time like crazily.

He's traveled 650 miles in 10 days. So like 65 miles a day, which is a lot. Also, he was worried about attacks from hostile native tribe named the Blackfus, which the Blackfus. The Blackfus? Yeah, Blackf-er. It says Blackf-ed on the map. If they do it, I didn't know if it was Blackfus

because it's like a proper noun or if they do Blackf-ed. Yeah, so he followed the Maria's North and was disappointed because he didn't even really stretch up farther if you look do black feet. Yeah. So he followed the the Maria's North and was disappointed because he didn't even really stretch up farther. If you look at the map, yeah, he didn't end up meeting the black feet, but it was cordial, but he told them that like, he said, oh yeah, the Shoshone and the Nez Pierce were cool with them, you know, they're thinking about ally and they're gonna be trained with us and all that. And he thought that that was like a good thing to say, but like really like, no, there were enemies of them so like they say oh yeah they're getting stronger we're

gonna trade with them and all that it's like right oh yeah right yeah because i mean to be fair one of the things that it seems like is that we always paint Native Americans is like the ever most peaceful of yeah not at all when realistically like there's blood feuds running through this rampant. Oh, yeah, man. Crazy wars all over the country. Yeah. Before we came here, for sure. Right. Lewis met back up with Clark on August 7th, where they planned to meet. And from there, they just made a mad dash back to civilization. They recorded a couple things, but it was just like, let's get back. We did what we needed to do. Yeah. So they traveled up to 60 miles a day and they ran a ride back at St. Charles, Missouri, which is where they took off at on September 21st, 1806. So what's that? A month and a half?

Or yeah, from August 7th to September, they went from Yellowstone back to there. But this was a nearly 8,000 mile journey, three years, three year long. So if you're talking, you know, from 1803 to 1805, it was just over, you know, after that, like they're like, all right, yep, they went under the, I didn't look up too much about like what happened after that. Like I do know Luce's death was somewhat of a mystery though. Some say it was from suicide, including Jefferson, but he was like going up, he had debt and was at a hotel and then they heard gunshots and they found him dead. Like so like, but he was going up here at debt and was at a hotel and then they heard gunshots and they found him dead.

But he was acting weird before that and it could have been like there was a lot of robberies around that area and at the time, they did bring his body back up like 40 years later and there was multiple gunshots. So Clark went on to serve in the military and he died at age 68. They didn't say, yeah, just died or you know from my red Yeah, but yeah, man, it's crazy like they really did expand our knowledge of that area and like led to you know Manifest destiny just exactly like you talking about with what you needed to be learned in enough to survive in those environments that you're going into for the first time, those, you know,

expand fields of knowledge from, hey, we found this cactus plant that doesn't act like any other cactus we really know of in Western civilization. Exactly, man. Like tons of different species, different natives, different, you know, like areas, like all this stuff was discovered by them. And like out of the man, I could just imagine going on this trip. It'd be one of the most exciting trips ever I think in in mankind like seriously like just think about that it would have to be right even one that we've covered in Mansa Musa, I think I would rather be in this than Mansa Musa's and like I would have gold and just traveling around

Exactly or Lord parts of all society. But with that, we'd love to thank you for joining us here each and every week next week. Join us for episode 50 where we're going to be covering George Carlin and Alexander the Great in an expanded format episode for all of you lovely listeners. In the meantime, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and on Patreon where you can get early access to these episodes by up to one week. That's seven whole days. I know it's crazy, right?

Give us a rate and review on your podcast platform of choice. It helps us find new listeners, and it also just helps out the show overall and in general. For Brad, I'm Kyle and we will see you again here soon. See ya. Blamity blam. Ah! Brain soda.