The Lewis and Clark National Park Association will host authors David Peck and Marti Peck July 7.

Two sessions are planned, both in the Netul River Room of the Visitors Center at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. Admission to the park is free for the event.

A presentation at 2 p.m. will feature David Peck’s “Or Perish in the Attempt.” Historians say the work “ingeniously combines the remarkable adventures of Lewis and Clark with an examination of the health problems their expedition faced.” 

The book is subtitled, “The Hardship and Medicine of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.” Peck guides readers through the medical travails of the journey, describing treatments available then against remedies available now. 

At 3:30 p.m. a presentation will feature both David Peck and Marti Peck describing their book, “So Hard to Die: A Physician and a Psychologist Explore the Mystery of Meriwether Lewis’s Death.” Their work examines theories about his death, drawing on their professional medical backgrounds.

David Peck was raised in Santa Barbara, Calif., and worked for a multi-specialty medical group in San Diego in its urgent care department for 21 years.

Marti Peck, also a doctor, is a retired clinical psychologist and is certified by the American Psychoanalytic Society as an adult psychoanalyst. She had a private practice for 31 years.

She became fascinated with the mental health aspects of Lewis’s life from reading biographies and studying what is known about his death. Her contribution to “So Hard to Die” includes an analysis of his personality and how various influences from the culture of early America and his family likely influenced his behavior and his fate.

The event is sponsored by the Lewis and Clark National Park Association and hosted at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. The Fort Clatsop Bookstore is run by the association, a nonprofit supporting education at the park since 1963. The store is inside the visitors center at 92343 Fort Clatsop Road, in Astoria.

For details, log on to FortClatsopBookstore.com or LewisAndClarkNPA.org.