Rex Ziak is a writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, tour guide

Tour guide

A tour guide provides assistance, information and cultural, historical and contemporary heritage interpretation to people on organized tours, individual clients, educational establishments, at religious and historical sites, museums, and at venues of other significant interest...

, and documentarian, who lives in Naselle, Washington

Naselle, Washington

Naselle is a census-designated place in Pacific County, Washington, United States. The population was 419 at the 2010 census. Though very near Columbia River's estuary, the valley's Naselle River flows west into nearby Willapa Bay and then into the Pacific Ocean. Close about the town lie the...

, USA. Known for his Lewis and Clark

Lewis and Clark Expedition

The Lewis and Clark Expedition, or ″Corps of Discovery Expedition" was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William...

 studies, he is the author of In Full View. After careful study of the expedition's journals and of the geography of the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

 estuary

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

, Ziak precisely delineated the final leg of the expedition's approach to the Pacific Ocean.

In 2004, Ziak testified before Congress in support of the Lewis and Clark National and State Historical Parks

Lewis and Clark National and State Historical Parks

The Lewis and Clark National and State Historical Parks, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Columbia River, commemorate the Lewis and Clark Expedition...

.
The next year he published a fold-out map and guide to the route taken by the expedition.

As a documentarian and cinematographer, his work under assignment from ABC Television

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 received an Emmy

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 in 1993. As a local activist and regional historian, he has served as a consultant to the City of Long Beach

Long Beach, Washington

Long Beach is a city in Pacific County, Washington, United States. The population was 1,283 at the 2000 census and grew to 1,392 at the 2010 census...

and as a board member of the Pacific County Friends of Lewis and Clark. Ziak has also run unsuccessfully for local political office.