Event offers glimpse into Fremont’s western expansion

Registration is open through July 11 for Nevada State Museum’s John C. Fremont symposium, a two-day series of lectures and presentations on July 25 and 26.

The presentations examine how the explorer mapped the west, including Nevada, California and Oregon, the tools he used and the topographical and political lessons learned along the way.

Featured presenters are Andrew Menard, New York author of “Sight Unseen: How Fremont’s First Expedition Changed the American Landscape;” Richard Francaviglia, professor emeritus at the University of Texas, Arlington, and author of “Go East Young Man: Imagining the American West as the Orient;” and Paul Rosewitz, a leading expert on mountain howitzers.

The symposium will include explorations of geography, mapping, surveying, military ordnance, archaeology and photography. Among the sessions slated are “Fremont and Preuss: Navigating into the Unknown” by Paul Pace, professional land surveyor and member of the Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team; and “Legend, Lore, and Lionization: The Mischaracterization of Joseph R. Walker and Other Explorers of the Intermontane West” by Scott Stine, a paleoclimatologist and geomorphologist at California State University, Hayward.

“Is this Fremont’s cannon?” is scheduled by Gene Hattori, the museum’s curator of anthropology with Rosewitz and John Wilusz, civil engineer with the California Department of Water Resources and member of the Fremont Howitzer Recovery Team.

Actor Alastair Jaques and Virginia City cowboy poet Richard Elloyan will perform during the event.

The event, in conjunction with the museum’s “Finding Fremont: Pathfinder of the West” exhibition, celebrates Nevada’s 150th anniversary of statehood. It includes dinner in the Nevada Room of the Governor’s Mansion and a Dutch oven lunch. To register, go to http://bit.ly/1knO2MY.

Nevada State Museum is at 600 N. Carson St. For more information, email DStevenson@nevadaculture.org, or call 775-687-4810, ext. 237.