From the banks of the Missouri River in Fort Benton, the view looks much like it did more than 200 years ago.
Overlooking the river is a memorial honoring Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea — a piece of Montana history that has a very personal connection to my family.
The woman represented as Sacajawea in that statue was modeled after my grandma, Patty Hodson.
In 1974, my grandma was living in Browning, raising her family and working at the bakery and the business she owned with my grandpa.
That’s where sculptor Bob Scriver first noticed her.
Scriver had been researching Sacajawea and believed my grandma had a similar height and facial structure to what he envisioned for the historical figure.
“He asked if I would be willing to model for the project. And obviously I did say yes, and we started in the spring of 1974,” my grandma said.
Scriver took measurements of every part of her body to use in creating the sculpture — from the length of her fingers to the dip in her lips.
He then created each figure piece by piece out of clay, including Lewis, Clark, Sacajawea and her baby. The baby was also our cousin named David.
The memorial was completed in 1975, later bronzed in New York and dedicated in June 1976 during the United States’ Bicentennial celebration.
The project cost around $175,000 to create and is now the State of Montana’s official memorial to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
My grandma even kept newspaper clippings from the time she was modeling for the sculpture.
Looking through them together, she found an article from the Glacier Reporter in Browning that featured her and the project.
“At some point, the newspaper, which was the Glacier Reporter in Browning, they asked if I would sit down for an interview for them and talk about the piece that we were working on for Scriver,” she said. “And this is a newspaper article that came out that year. Obviously, this is me, a very young Patty Juneau.”
But while my grandma was part of the process of creating the memorial, she wasn't there when it was unveiled. She was unable to attend the dedication in 1976 and wouldn't see the finished sculpture until nearly 20 years later, when she traveled to Fort Benton during the summer.
“I was unable to attend the dedication, so I wasn't there for the actual unveiling,” she said. “It was a few years later that I traveled to Fort Benton in the summertime, and was just amazed at that piece of art that sat along the Missouri River, and that I was a part of that.”
At the time, my grandma said she didn't fully understand what the statue would eventually mean or the significance of Sacajawea's role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
“I didn't realize at the time, because I was so young, the significance of what this statue would mean with the Lewis and Clark journey that they took, and the piece that Sacajawea had played in that discovery,” she said.
She said it wasn't until years later that she truly understood what an honor it was to be chosen for the project.
“As an Indigenous woman, I am enrolled with the Chippewa Cree Tribe in Rocky Boy, and to be chosen to do that piece with Bob Scriver for the Bicentennial for the state of Montana, I never realized until a few years after that what an honor it really was, and I am very grateful,” she said.
Now, nearly 50 years after the memorial was created, my grandma can still look at the sculpture and see a small piece of herself standing along the Missouri River.
“When I see it now, it still brings a lot of pride,” she said.
For most people visiting the memorial, it's a piece of Montana history.
For my family, it's also a piece of our history.
