Full episode
329: Nice Work If You Can Get It
Act Three

The Homesick Explorer

This American Life contributor Sarah Vowell tells the story of a mapmaker named Charles Preuss who charted the Western Territories with two of American history's legendary explorers—John Charles Fremont and Kit Carson. The maps Preuss made were best sellers and helped open the Western frontier to settlement. But, as he wrote in the diary he kept while in the wilderness, he hated pretty much every minute of the expedition. Actor Dermot Mulroney reads excerpts from Preuss's diary. Sarah Vowell is the author, most recently, of Assassination Vacation. (8 minutes)