Lewis, Clark, and Howard Frank Mosher

Author: Megan Michelson

"Just as the sunrise struck the soaring peaks of the Green Mountains, turning them as pink as one of my mother's sugar-glazed apples, I boarded the southbound mail." So begins the adventure of Ticonderoga and his race to the Pacific Ocean against renowned explorers Lewis and Clark, in the new novel by Vermont's award-winning author Howard Frank Mosher.

Mosher, a long time resident of the Northeast Kingdom, a remote area of Northern Vermont, spoke last Thursday at the Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury about the recent publication of his new book, "The True Account." The book documents the fictional journey of Ticonderoga and his uncle Private True Teague Kinneson, a wildly charismatic Vermonter, on their mission West alongside Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, now famous explorers commissioned by Thomas Jefferson in 1804 to explore the land bought by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. Despite its historical nature, however, most of the features and characters in the novel are creative interpretations by the author. As he exclaimed to his captive audience last Thursday, "I can assure you that very little in 'The True Account' is actually true."

Mosher is the author of seven books and has won several awards for his writing, including the 1991 New England Book Award for fiction and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award. As part of a joint presentation between the Ilsley Public Library and the Vermont Bookshop in a series of talks titled "Authors on Main," Mosher presented a slide show and narrative from his trip following the Lewis and Clark trail several years ago, on which he embarked in order to gain inspiration for his novel. From the head of the Missouri River through North Dakota, Montana and Idaho, Mosher arrived at the Pacific Ocean through a route similar to the one taken by his famous predecessors. Mosher and his wife Phillis, to whom he later dedicated the book, stopped at museums and interpretive centers along the way to learn and relive the story of Lewis and Clark and their epic journey westward.

They were particularly struck by the amount of development and changes in landscape that have occurred in the two centuries since Lewis and Clark traveled through the rugged Western terrain. Dams, forest fires and commercial sprawl have drastically altered the relatively uncharted environment of the legendary explorers' era. Mosher envisioned what Lewis and Clark would think of the American West today. "My sense from reading their journals is that Lewis and Clark were very forward-thinking men. I think they would have been shocked to see the technology of today, but I think they both would have taken it all in stride. In some ways, they started the development and changes. They were on the brink of technology," he speculated.

Through years of research, Mosher seemed able to literally place himself in the shoes of the explorers he followed. "From reading his journal, I could tell that Lewis was never a man of anything less than undaunted courage," he said. Perhaps the same could be said for Mosher himself, who spent upwards of six years and over 40 drafts working on his most recent tale. One slide in his presentation showed a photo of the humble author perched behind endless stacks of lined yellow notebook paper, evidence that he writes all of his first drafts by hand.

Mosher's appearance at the Ilsley Library attracted a high turnout, which did not surprise Richard Shrake, the library's adult supervisor. "This is the best crowd we have had so far," he said. "He is obviously a very popular Vermont author." Mosher's prolific body of work and storytelling talent have evidently helped him to make a name for himself not only nationwide, but also among his fellow Vermonters.