The long-dead Lewis and Clark bring modern-day sisters closer
By Jennifer Keeven
Nearly 200 years after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark completed the cross-country expedition that spawned a hundred and one PBS docs, sisters Liz and Mary Clare set off to follow in the intrepid explorers’ footsteps ... literally. Upon returning, they adopted the pen name Frances Hunter and wrote To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis & Clark (Blind Rabbit Press, 2006), a half-fiction, half-nonfiction account of Clark’s investigation of Lewis’ untimely death, but they could have just as easily written the book on sibling revelry.
The sisters divided their modern-day frontier expedition into three separate trips: Great Falls, Mont., and the Continental Divide in 2003; St. Louis and Memphis in 2004; and finally, a kayak trip on the Columbia River in 2005. “We were always just totally nerd girls with our books and everything, and there we were, out kayaking,” Liz says.
Things got a little too exciting, though, once they hit Multnomah Falls, Ore., for some rock climbing. “I nearly fell off the cliff,” Clare says. “Luckily, someone grabbed me.” The irony that Lewis had had a similar accident—he was trying to reach a flower on a cliff when he slipped—wasn’t lost on Clare.
In the end, the journey brought the sisters closer. “We were drawn to work on this story because they developed a relationship similar to ours,” Clare says. “They had different strengths and weaknesses that complemented each other, and they were stronger and smarter when they were together than when they were apart. That’s how it is with me and Mary.”
