Happy Labor Day from Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair! Before you get out to a barbecue or picnic or just enjoying the waning days of summer, sit back and relax with this encore broadcast featuring a 2-part conversation with adventure writer Peter Stark!

Peter Stark chronicles one of America’s most dramatic but largely forgotten historical turning points in the conquest of the continent in his riveting book Astoria.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

At a time when the edge of American settlement barely reached beyond the Appalachians, two visionaries, President Thomas Jefferson and millionaire John Jacob Astor foresaw the potential of the Pacific to dominate trade much as the Atlantic did in their day. 2 years after Lewis and Clark’s historical expedition ended, Astor set out to establish a global trade network based at the mouth of the Columbia River while Jefferson envisioned a separate democracy to spread eastward and meet the young United States. The tale unfolds from 1810 to 1813., and author Peter Stark drew from numerous firsthand accounts of those who made the journey and suffered incredible hardship while embarking on soaring adventure in his new book Astoria. Stark is an adventure and exploration writer of several books and is a longtime correspondent for Outside magazine. His numerous articles and essays have appeared in Smithsonian, The New Yorker, Men’s Health, The New York Times, and many others.

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