Jake was born in 1901 on the back of a cart in Victoria's Western District. He died in 1997, off the beach at Byron Bay. The River Project traces his life. A hulking country boy, with a secret love of rivers, Jake meanders through Australia's century. He connects with the great events, but sees them from below -- never the hero, always the outsider. The play traces him through the war, the radical trades union movement of the '20s, the depression, the '60s and the cruel new world of the '80s and '90s. A fictional-real history of an invisible man. Cast number can be anywhere from 1 to 20.