It is indeed outstanding. Some of what they write about, if it happened today, would be pretty much unbelievable.
Just the business about the bears; not having any food, drinking water straight from the river; killing deer then having the Indians with you eat the kill raw....and the like!!!
Absolutely facinating!
You’ll love this insight then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pqFyKh-rUI
One of the most fascinating parts of the book for me was their frank discussion of the Indians as a fallen people. Their morality was situational and very often immoral (prostituting young girls to the whites, stealing, etc.)
It also showed that Sacajawea, though important, wasn’t desperately critical to their mission as purported by modern feminist scholars. I didn’t come away feeling that she was extraneous (she did save his papers during the flash flood), just simply not the central character in the adventure. The fact that she traveled pregnant and had the baby en route was very impressive. I feel that the feminists want to ‘man’ her up, instead of recognizing the amazing things she did while fully expressing her femininity.
I got the audio recording and we listened to it in the car as we did family stuff. My kids loved it.