Additional Locations to Visit – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

This book, originally published as “Passage of Discovery“, is an ecologist’s guide to the first half of the Lewis and Clark trail, their travels up the Missouri River from St. Louis to Three Forks, MT. I have decided to share this book with the readers of my website, and I am going to present the entire book here, one chapter at a time, with a new chapter appearing each week. There are more than 40 chapters. If you follow along and read all of them, you will learn about the entire Missouri River as seen by Lewis and Clark at the beginning of the 19th century, and as I visited it during the 1990s to see what they had seen, and to learn how the countryside had changed. Comparing what Lewis and Clark saw with what we see today is one of the best insights we can get of how nature and environment in American has changed since European settlement. I hope you enjoy it and find it rewarding.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

Additional Locations to Visit

For people setting out to retrace the expedition of Lewis and Clark, there are many places to visit in addition to the ones listed as main entries in this book. Some of these are not locations where Lewis and Clark went, but have related historic or natural history features. Some locations are listed for those whose routes of travel bring them closer to one of these rather than one of the major entries. These are cross-referenced to the main entries.

This list is a selection out of many, and as the interest in the Lewis and Clark expedition grows, the number will increase, so it is wise to check with local chambers of commerce, parks and wildlife departments in the states along the route, Bureau of Land Management, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U. S. Forest Service offices.

On the way up the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark passed through lands that are today part of the states of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South and North Dakota, and Montana and information about natural history areas can be obtained from each of these states. The National Park Service publishes a Lewis and Clark Trail Map that can be obtained from the U. S. Government Printing Office or from many locations along the trail.

The locations that follow are on public lands or otherwise have public access. On a map you may see other locations that are closed to the public, including research areas. Some wildlife refuges that are remote and have few visitor facilities are also not included. This is not a list of accommodations, restaurants and other facilities. There are many other travel guides that provide such information.

If you dig around in a big library, you can find 200 or so accounts of people who have tried to follow the entire Lewis and Clark expedition from beginning to end, and to do it exactly as Lewis and Clark did. Such trips are more for adventure and verisimilitude. This book is meant to guide the traveler to experience nature as Lewis and Clark did, as much as is possible today, given the great changes our society has wrought to the countryside. It is also meant to guide the traveler to understand these changes for what they are, both positive and negative. To this end, there are places I suggest you go that are near, but not exactly where the expedition passed, but are the best remaining places to see a certain kind of countryside, or kind of wildlife in a natural or naturalistic setting. There are also sections of the Missouri that are so altered by dams and relatively inaccessible, that I suggest you do not try to follow these unless you are intent on the adventure of reproducing their exact pathway, whatever has happened to that path. Statements in italics are referenced to main entries in the book. The list is from east to west, with some side excursions.

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial National Historic Site at the St. Louis Arch, St. Louis, MO. An extensive information exhibit about the Lewis and Clark expedition. Jefferson national Expansion memorial is located in the heart of downtown St. Louis on the Mississippi River. Interstate Routes 44, 55, 64 and 70 converge near the park. The address is 11 North 4^th Street, St. Louis, MO 63102. (314)-425-4465
Missouri History Museum in the Jefferson Memorial Building at Forest Park, St. Louis, MO. The museum houses many historic documents and artifacts related to the Lewis and Clark expedition and their time. It is preparing a major exhibit about the Lewis and Clark expedition including some of the natural history collections. PO Box 11940, St. Louis, MO 63112-0040 (314) 746-4599
Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis MO. One of America’s preeminent botanic gardens, a place to begin learning about plants and their role in nature. Location of the new Flora of North America project. For more information contact Missouri Botanic Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd., St. Louis, MO (800) 642-8842 or (314)-577-5100.
Columbia Bottom, near St. Louis, MO. Drive north on Riverview Drive; the road changes name to Columbia Bottom Road, follow for approximately 1 mile; at a sharp curve the name changes to Strodtman Road; follow road to gate.
Missouri Botanical Garden Arboretum, St. Louis MO. Location of restored prairie and oak woodlands using prescribed fires. 30 miles west of St Louis Arch. Interstate 44, Exit 253.P.O. Box 38, Gray Summit, MO 63039. (314)-451-3512
Katy Trail from St. Charles to Columbia, MO. A rails-to-trails, biking and hiking trail to view the countryside. The trail passes along the floodplain of the Missouri River. You can see limestone, dolomite and sandstone bluffs. There are picnic tables and other facilities along the trail. The easiest access from St. Louis is River Front Park, near the historic Main Street, in nearby St. Charles. However, you can intersect the Katy Trail at a number of locations. An alternative from St. Charles is to take Interstate 40 west to State Route 94 along the river and stop at the parking areas along the Katy Trail. You can start bicycling on the trail from any of these locations. A pleasant location is at Portland, Missouri, on the north shore of the Missouri River just east of Jefferson City. For information contact the Department of Natural Resources Division of State Parks, PO Box 176, Jefferson City, MO 65102 (800) 334-6946.
Stump Island Park The location of the expedition’s campsite of June 10-11, 1804, and given the name “Stump Island” in Clark’s journal. There is an interpretative sign.
Jefferson City, MO. One of the access points for Katy Trail State Park. For information contact the Department of Natural Resources Division of State Parks, PO Box 176, Jefferson City, MO 65102 (800) 334-6946.
Baltimore Bend, MO. One of the last remaining original bottomland forests. Discussed in more detail in the entry on Arrow Rock State Park: Cottonwoods and the Resiliency of Life. For information about this and other conservation areas managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation, including Blind Pond Lake Conservation Area, Fount Grove, and Bunch Hollow, call Grand Pass Conservation Area, Route 1, Box 62, Miami, MO 65344 (816) 595-2444.
National Frontier Trails Center Trails Museum, Independence, MO. A museum about the trails west, especially the Lewis and Clark, Oregon, and Mormon Trails. 318 West Pacific, Independence, MO. (816)-325-7575
Tallgrass Prairie national Preserve, Grayslake, Ill.{SEE ARTICLE IN LA TIMES 5/27/99} Discussed in more detail in the entry on Loess Hills State Recreation Area.
Leavenworth Landing Park, Leavenworth, Kansas. Located on the Missouri River, this was a major landing site for boats. It is a good place to walk along the Missouri River shore. Take Route 73 into Leavenworth to Spruce Street (Route 92) turn east and go to the river shore which will take you to the park. Located at the cross roads of Esplanade and Choctaw Street. For more information contact Leavenworth Park Community (913)-651-2203.
Sugar Lake, north of Atchison, Kansas. Sugar Lake is an oxbow lake; perhaps the lake called “Gosling Lake” by Lewis and Clark where they saw clear water and great quantities of fish and geese. Most oxbow lakes have been drained and converted to farmland. Discussed in more detail in the entry on DeSoto Bend National Wildlife Refuge.
Lewis and Clark State Park, south of St. Joseph, MO. Location of an oxbow lake formed when the river cut off a meander. A full-scale replica of the Lewis and Clark keel boat is at the park. The park is located east of where State Route 59 crosses the Missouri River. For further discussion, see the entry on DeSoto Bend National Wildlife Refuge. 801 Lakecrest Blvd., Rushville, MO, 64484. (816)-579-5564
Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, near Mound City, Missouri, and Big Lake State Park. The largest oxbow lake along the Missouri River is located here. This area is used by more than 275 species of birds including migrating waterfowl: white pelicans, great blue herons, pintails, teals, mallards, snow geese, Canada geese, and cormorants. Squaw Creek is a place to see many of the species of wildlife that Lewis and Clark saw in the easternmost part of the journey, and it is also one of the southernmost areas of loess hills. From Interstate 29 take Exit 79 40 miles north of St. Joseph, MO to Route 159 west, which goes to the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters. Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, PO Box 101, Mound City, MO 64470 (816) 442-3187.
Museum of the Missouri River History at Nebraska State Recreation Area, Brownville, NE. Location of the steam-powered side-wheel dredging boat, The Captain Meriwether Lewis, one of the boats that channelized the Missouri River between 1932 and 1969 and is now a designated National Historic Landmark. DIRECTIONS? Discussed in more detail in the entry on Columbia and The Big Muddy. For additional information contact Cave State Park, RR 1, Box 30, Shubert, NE (402) 825-3341.
Indian Cave State Park, Brownville, NE. This 3,000 acre park has excellent views of the Missouri River and its floodplain. There are 20 miles of hiking trails, horseback trail rides and cruises on the Missouri River. It is located 10 miles south of Brownville and five miles east on S-64E. For more information write or call Indian Cave State Park, RR 1, Box 30, Shubert, NE 68437 (402)-883-2575.
Nebraska Mitigation Projects. There are supported by the Nebraska Department of Game and Parks. At this time, Hamburg Bend is functioning while the other five are in a planning stage; for some, land acquisition has been completed. The other five are: Blackbird-Tieville-Upper Decatur Bends; Middle Decatur Bend; Tobacco Island (3 ½ miles south of Plattesmouth, Nebraska); Kansas Bend (north of Peru, Nebraska); Langdon Bend (near the Cooper Nuclear Power Station); and Rush Bottom Bend (near Rulo, Nebraska). For further discussion, see the entries on The Big Muddy, Grand Pass, and Hamburg Bend. These will develop over time. For their status and visitor facilities, contact the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, 2200 N. 33rd St., P.O. Box 30370, Lincoln, NE 68503-0370.
Wabash Trace Nature Trail on way to Omaha, NE. The trail is 63 miles long and proceeds from Council Bluffs, Iowa southeast to Blanchard, Iowa. It winds through river valleys that are tributaries of the Missouri, through hills and fields, sometimes within a few miles of the Missouri River. For information contact Bill Spitznagle (president), (402)-280-6835. SWINT P.O. Box 524, Council Bluffs, Iowa, 51502-0524 (712) 325-1000.
Loess Hills Scenic Byway. 220 miles of paved roads more or less paralleling I 29 and offering “a mosaic of designated roads through the heart of the scenic Loess Hills region of western Iowa.” For more detail read entries for Allwine Prairie and Loess Hills. A brochure including a map can be obtained from Welcome Centers in Iowa or by writing the Harrison County Museum RR #3, Box 130A, Missouri Valley, Iowa 51555.
Papillion Creek Dams, Omaha, NE. These dams were built by the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and recreation, within the city limits. They are at Cunningham Lake at 90^th and State Streets (712) 444-5900; Standing Bear Lake at 138^th and Fort Streets; and Chalco Recreation Area (712) 444-5900 and Wehrspann Lake, at the junction of state route 50 (800) 444-6222.
Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE. The museum has major collections of paintings by Karl Bodmer of the route of Lewis and Clark, made during the trip of Prince Maximillian in the 1830s, perhaps the first tourist trip to rediscover the journey of Lewis and Clark. Lacking photographic cameras, the prince brought along his own landscape painter. The museum is located at 2200 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE (402) 342-3300.
N. P. Dodge Memorial Park, Omaha, NE. This is where the expedition camped on July 28, 1804. The park is located at 11000 N. River Drive. For more information contact the Omaha Visitors Bureau at (800)-332-1819.
Neale Woods Nature Center, Omaha, NE. The nature center’s emphasis is on prairie restoration. For more detail, see entry on Fontenelle Forest Preserve. For more information contact Fontenelle Forest Nature Center, 14323 Edith Marie Ave., Omaha, NE 68112 (402) 453-5615.
Hayden Prairie State Preserve in Howard County. Site of original tall-grass prairie. For more detail read entries on Allwine Prairie and Loess Hills.
Hitchcock Nature Center, Honey Creek, Iowa. The nature center includes 800 acres with hiking trails through loess hills with wooded bluffs and native prairie. For more detail read entries on Allwine Prairie and Loess Hills. You can reach the center from Interstate 80, Exit 40 or call (712) 741-5465 for more information.
Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge near Omaha NE. Fishing and hiking available within 2,000 acres of woods, wetlands, and croplands. Boyer’s Chute has more visitor facilities than most National Wildlife Refuges. There is a two mile reconstructed chute – a slow moving water channel of the Missouri River – and restored wetlands. For more detail, read the entries on Big Muddy and Hamburg Bend and Grand Pass. Boyer’s Chute is located three miles east of Fort Calhoun. Information about the Chute can be obtained from the Fontenelle Forest Association which is a partner in its development and management. (402) 453-5615.
Plattsmouth, NE. An interesting side trip is to follow the Platte River to Lincoln, NE. The Platte has not been channelized, but its flow is less than in 1804 because much of the water is diverted for irrigation. However, the Platte retains much of the scenic aspect of a prairie river, with sandbars and cottonwoods. For more detail, read the entry Along the Platte River. Lincoln Chamber of Commerce (402)-436-2350.
Nine Mile Prairie, Lincoln, NE. This is one of the earliest attempts at prairie restoration and the subject of early ecological research. Relatively little used for scientific research at present; it offers an opportunity to see some of the prairie grasses and forbs. From the center of the city of Lincoln go west on “O” Street to Northwest 48th, travel north about four miles to Fletcher Avenue then turn west on Fletcher Avenue and drive about one mile. There is parking on right, the prairie is to the left. For more information contact the Wachiska Audubon Society at 4547 Calvert Street, Suite 10, Lincoln, NE 68506-5643, or call (402)-486-4846).
Grand Island, NE. This is a worthwhile site to visit during the sandhill bird migration, because as many as a half million of these birds stop here to feed. For more detail, read the entry on Grand Pass. Grand Island is located west of Lincoln on the Platte River. For more information, contact the Grand Island Visitors Bureau at P.O. Box 1486, Grand Isle, NE 68802 or call (800)-658-3178.
Riverton Wildlife Refuge. One of the locations along the Loess Hills Scenic Byway trip. See additional site 27 and entries for loess hills.
Midland Marina, Sioux City, Iowa. The marina is near the mouth of the Big Sioux River one of the major rivers that flows from Iowa and South Dakota into the Missouri River. Even though the hills are low in Iowa, there is a definite state divide, separating east from west. The rivers to the east flow to the Mississippi River, the rivers to the west flow into the Missouri River – the rivers and countryside of Lewis and Clark. 1100 Larsen Park Road, Sioux City, Iowa 51102. (712)-258-2000.
Sioux Falls Recreation Trail and Greenway, Sioux City, Iowa. 14-mile trail along the Missouri and the Big Sioux River which can be reached from the river front park in Sioux City.
Sioux City Park, Sioux City, Iowa. Fifty-seven city parks are located in and around the Sioux City area. For more information write Sioux City Parks and Recreation at P.O. Box 447, Sioux City, Iowa 51102 or call (712)-279-6126.
Sioux City Stone State Park, Sioux City, Iowa. Has excellent views of the Missouri River Valley & 3 states. For more information write the park at 4500 Sioux River Road, Sioux City, Iowa 51109 or call (712)-255-4698.
Loess Ridge Nature Center, Sioux City. Iowa. Site of a walk-under prairie and a 400 gallon aquarium of native fish. Located at 4500 Sioux River Road, Sioux City. (712)-258-0838
Clay County Park, Vermillion, SD. Camping and boat launching facilities on the wild and scenic stretch of the Missouri River. For further discussion, see the entry on Vermillion: On the Wild and Scenic Missouri. Located 2 miles southwest of Vermillion off South Dakota Hwy 50. (605)-987-2263.
Bike Trail, Yankton, SD. This bike trail has waterfront views of the Missouri River. For further discussion, see the entry on Vermillion: On the Wild and Scenic Missouri.
Riverside Park, Yankton, SD. On the Missouri River, a place where you can consider how cities and towns treat their waterfronts. From Route 81 go east on West 4^th Street and south on Douglas Avenue to the park.
Missouri National Recreational River, Gavins Point Dam to Ponca, NE State Park. 59 mile unchannelized stretch of the Missouri River from Gavins Point Dam to Ponca State Park – the longest remnant of the original Missouri except in Montana. For further discussion, see the entries on Vermillion: On the Wild and Scenic Missouri and Down the River and The Big Muddy. N.P.S. P.O. Box 591, O’Neill, NE, 68783. (402)-336-3970
National Fish Hatchery and Aquarium, Yankton, SD. The hatchery for native fish, including those of the Missouri River. For further discussion, see the entry on Hamburg Bend. Located three miles west of Yankton on Route 52. For more information call (605) 665-3352.
Gavins Point Dam, between Nebraska and South Dakota. The most downstream of the major dams on the Missouri River. The dam is earthen, is 74 feet high and 8700 feet long. The Lewis and Clark expedition held a council at Calumet Bluffs in the vicinity with Yankton Sioux on August 28, 1804. This council meeting is noted by interpretative signs at the dam and at Lewis and Clark State Recreation Area (see additional site #46). For further discussion, see the entries on Down the River and The Big Muddy. Gavins Point Dam is located on Nebraska Route 121 2 miles south of Yankton, SD. The Visitors Center is four miles west of Yankton in Nebraska at the south end of Gavins Point Dam. For more information, call (402) 667-7873.
Lewis and Clark State Recreation Area at Gavins Point Dam, SD. The recreation area has boat ramps on the reservoir formed by the dam, called Lewis and Clark Lake. The lake is used for recreation and is a place to see the benefits and alterations of the landscape created by such a reservoir. It is located five miles west of the Yankton on Route 52. For more information, call (402) 688-2985.
Ponca State Park, NE. The park is at the lower end of the 59 mile stretch of the Missouri River National Recreational River area and is one of the best public locations to see this section of the Missouri River from the shore. The channelized river begins here. Look upriver to see the “wild Missouri”, downstream to see the channelized river. Some of the wildlife you can see include wild turkeys, eagles and deer. For more information contact Ponca State Park, PO Box 688, Ponca, NE 68770 (402) 755-2384.
Blue Bluffs area. Historical marker locating the Lewis and Clark campsites of August 23, 24, and 25, 1804. For further discussion, see the entry on South Sioux City and the Bluffs on Fire.
Lewis and Clark Lake near Yankton, SD. The reservoir behind Gavins Point Dam where you can see bluffs overlooking the lake. The lake can be reached by following Route 12 to S54 to Santee, Nebraska, the headquarters of the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation. For more information call (402)-388-4169.
Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge near Valentine, NE. Site to view prairie terrain and drive through and see penned-in buffalo (about 375), elk (about 70), prairie dogs, and Texas Long-horn cattle. For further discussion, see the entry on Vermillion and Dixon: Buffalo Demise and Recovery. Located five miles east of Valentine, NE on Nebraska Route 12. For more information call (402) 376-3789.
Valentine National Wildlife Refuge, Valentine, NE, approximately 20 miles south of Valentine, NE on Route 83. More than 70,000 acres with many ponds and small lakes in the Sandhills and many water birds. For further discussion see entry on Grand Pass. Refuge Manager Fort Niobrara-Valentine National Wildlife Refuge Complex, HC 14 Box 67, Valentine, NE (402)-376-3789.
Niobrara River Wild and Scenic section, Valentine, Nebraska. Famous as one of the top ten canoeing rivers in the United States, a way to experience a prairie river with sandbars and snags from the water. (For further discussion, see entries on Niobrara River Meets the Missouri: Cedars Persist on the Bright Bluffs; Confluence of the Niobrara and Missouri Rivers: Lewis and Clark Begin to See the Animals of the West)
Big Bend Dam near Chamberlain, SD. One of the six major dams on the Missouri River. For further discussion, see the entry on Down the River. To visit the dam, take Interstate 90 west of Chamberlain to Route 47 north to Fort Thompson. For more information call the Army Corp of Engineers at (605)-245-2255.
Akta Lakota Museum, Chamberlain, SD. The museum is a good source of information about the Sioux Indian culture, which Lewis and Clark encountered on their journey. For more information contact Saint Joseph Indian School, Attention Akta Lakota Museum,North Main Street, Box 89, Chamberlain, SD 57325, or call (605)-734-3455.
Native American Loop Tour, Chamberlain, SD. A driving tour through the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Indian Reservations. Loop attractions include the Akta Lakota Museum, the Big Bend Dam and the Lower Brule Game Lodge. Self-guided brochures and audio cassettes are available. For more information contact the Chamberlain Chamber of Commerce located at 115 West Lawler, Chamberlain, SD 57325 or call (605)-734-6541.
Farm Island and Pierre, SD. Lewis and Clark hunted elk here. It is the site of the South Dakota’s first continuous settlement (started in 1817). Today there is fishing for walleye pike and hunting for geese. From the town of Pierre, take Sioux/ Wells Ave. This road connects with Hwy 34. Farm Island is 3-4 miles east of Pierre off of Hwy 34. For more information call (605)-224-5605 or write Farm Island, 1301 Farm Island Road, Pierre, SD, 57501-5829.
Fort Pierre National Grassland, Pierre, SD. For further discussion, see the entry on Little Missouri National Grasslands. Drive south on Route 83 from Pierre, or take Interstate 90 west from Chamberlain, at exit 212 go north on Route 83 to Fort Pierre National Grassland. P.O. Box 417, Pierre, SD 57501. (605)-224-5517.
Samuel H. Ordway Jr. Memorial Prairie, Eureka, SD. 7,600 acres with more than 300 species of plants as well as water birds and buffalo. For further discussion, see the entry on Dixon, Nebraska
Oahe Dam, Pierre, SD. One of the major dams on the Missouri River. For further discussion, see the entry on Down the River; The Big Muddy. Located 4 miles north of Pierre on Hwy 1804. For more information contact the Army Corp of Engineers at 28563 Powerehouse Road, Pierre, SD, 57501 or call (605)-224-5862.
Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park, Royal, NE. You can see fossil rhinoceroses, horses, camels, from 10 million years ago when this area was a tropical grassland. There are also interpretative programs and nature trails to teach you about the geology, animals and plants of the Great Plains. Located South of Niobrara State Park near the junction of Routes 59 and 14. For more information, write Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park, P. O. Box 66, Royal, NE 68773 or call (402) 893-2000.
Mouth of the Bad River, Fort Pierre, SD. Location of the Teton Council Site where Lewis and Clark held a council with the Teton Sioux on September 24, 1804. There is river access and a waterfront park here.
Custer State Park, Custer, SD. Tours of free-ranging buffalo herds provide one of the best locations to see buffalo. For further discussion, see the entry on Vermillion, South Dakota and Dixon, Nebraska: Buffalo Demise and Recovery. Take Route 385/16 toward Hill City, go into the town of Custer, make a left on Mr Rushmore Rd which will take you directly to the park. H C 83, Box 70, Custer, SD 57730. (605) 255-4515
Roughrider Trail, Bismarck, ND. 17 miles for hiking, horseback riding and snowmobiling, paralleling the Missouri River. For further discussion, see the entry on Fort Mandan. Roughrider Trail is located south of the Bismark.
Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, Bismarck, ND. This is near the site of a Mandan village where Lewis and Clark would spend the winter. When they arrived, on October 21, 1804, they saw a beautiful plain “covered with herds of buffalo”, one of which they shot for food. For further discussion, see the entry on Fort Mandan. Located 7 miles south of Mandan on Hwy 1806. 4480 Fort Lincoln Road, Mandan, ND 58554. (701)-663-9571.
Garrison Dam, Bismarck, ND. One of the six major dams on the Missouri River. There is an exhibit area, camping and fishing. Lewis and Clark stopped here on August 13, 1806 on their return trip. For further discussion, see the entry on Fort Mandan. Hwy 200 West, Riverdale, ND 58565. Army Corp of Engineers (701)-654-7441 or (701)-654-7411.
Sakakawea State Park, Pick City, ND. The park is located on a peninsula that extends into Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir behind Garrison Dam. The park is primarily for RVs and motorboats. For further discussion, see the entry on Down the River.
Four Bears Park, northwest of Bismarck, ND. An interpretative center discusses the Lewis and Clark expedition, but focuses on the Indians of this region, the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa. This area was visited by Lewis and Clark. For further discussion, see the entry on Knife River Indian Villages.
Cross Ranch State Park, HC2, Box 152, Sanger, ND 58567, Phone 701-794-3731. Off of ND Route 1806 between Washburn and Sanger. From Bismarck take I 94 west, then Route 25 north to Route 1806. Continue north on Route 1806. Said to be along one of the last free-flowing stretches of the Missouri River in North Dakota, the park is located among cottonwood trees along the river. The park has camp grounds and a log cabin that can be rented, a boat ramp, canoes for rent, a Visitor Center and 15 miles of hiking trails that connect the part to the Cross Ranch Nature Preserve, a property of The Nature Conservancy. Waterflow including white pelicans are seen there.
Little Missouri State Park, north of Killdeer on Route 22. This park, covering almost 6,000 acres, fronts picturesque Bad Lands scenery along the Missouri River. It is a primitive park with hiking and horseback access. Horses can be rented and guides are available. Mule deer, golden eagles are present.
Sully Creek State Recreation Area, just outside Medora, ND off of Interstate 94. Canoe access to the Little Missouri River, North Dakota only officially listed scenic river, provides an opportunity to be on a prairie river. See the entry about the Niobrara River. The Little Missouri passes through bad lands countryside. There is a hiking trail connecting this recreation area to the Little Missouri National Grassland and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, south sections.
Lewis and Clark State Park, ND. Interpretative sign.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND, North Section, is one of the few national facilities where you have a good chance to see bison. This part of the park has a herd of about ___ hundred bison which are frequently seen roaming, feeding, and resting along a 14 mile drive through the park. Mule deer, white-tailed deer and other wildlife can be seen against a beautiful and picturesque badland scenery created by the canyon of the Little Missouri River. This river was displaced by the continental glaciers from its preglacial bed, and since the end of the ice age has worn a canyon through soft sedimentary rocks. The park in off of ND route 85, which can be reached from the North from Williston, ND. An interesting day trip from Williston is to visit the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri and then travel to the National Park.
Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge. More than 9,000 Pelicans nest here and can be seen from April to September. From Williston, ND take Route 2 west, to Culbertson, MT, then north on Route 16. Just before the town of Medicine Lake is a sign marking the entry to the Wildlife Refuge, to the right. There is an auto route on a gravel road. A two mile side road, somewhat rough, leads to a pelican overlook with binocular scopes. From there you can see hundreds of pelicans. Many other waterfowl and upland short and mid-grass prairie birds use the Refuge, including American Bitterns, coots, the endangered piping plover. Research at the refuge is done to enhance the production and persistence of the waterfowl and prairie birds. For further discussion see the entry on Grant’s Pass.
Fort Peck Dam. Take Route 2; from the east, take Route 117 southwest. From the west, take route 24 from Glasgow southeast. It is useful to see if effects of the large dams on the river, and to see the large earthen dams. The Army Corps of Engineer operates a wildlife pasture with a few bison and antelope, reached by a dirt road near the dam. Although clearly penned up, the animals are at least readily visible if you are unable to see these elsewhere. The Fort Peck National Wildlife Refuge has many access roads. Its primary goals are the conservation of sharp-tailed grouse and black footed ferrets, as well as the prairie dogs on which the ferrets feed. In recent years, European plague has decimated the prairie dog population. As a result, the ferrets, first reintroduced into the area in 1994, have not increased as hoped. Maps can be obtained from the Refuge office which is located near the Missouri River just after it leaves the dam.
Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, Malta, MT. Take Route 2 to Malta. The entrance to the Refuge is a few miles northeast of the town on Old Route 2. Traveling from the east, a sign about 10 miles before Malta directs you onto old route 2 from which there is much good wildlife viewing of the Refuge. An auto tour of 15 miles leads from the Refuge and circles the lake. A high clearance vehicle, preferably with four-wheel drive, is desirable for this road. Bowdoin offers some of the best viewing of waterbirds along the entire trail, and is a major nesting area of Pelicans. For further discussion see the entry on Grant’s Pass.
Loma Ferry Crossing. A put-in location for boat trips down the Missouri River and a place to view the white cliffs region of the river. This is an area where the river still follows its natural course. Also available nearby is the Richard E. Wood Wildlife Viewing Area. For further discussion see the entries on Fort Peck Dam and the Milk River and The Mouth of the Marias River.
Black Eagle in the vicinity of Fort Benton, Montana. An opportunity to see farm country of Montana. It was named “Black Eagle” by Lewis and Clark because the Indians told them they would see a black eagle at the falls of the Missouri. Located about 36 miles from Fort Benton.
The Benton Belle, a small tourist boat, operates out of Fort Benton, taking people on a short ride on the Missouri. It is one of the new opportunities to travel by boat that are developing in response to the growing interest in Lewis and Clark. Phone 406-XXX-XXXX (?)
Carter Ferry, Carter Montana. Between Fort Benton and Great Falls. A sign on Highway 87(?) Directs you to Carter on a gravel road. Another sign on the gravel road tells whether the ferry is operating. The ferry is one of the last cable ferries. It is a flat-bottomed barge with an inboard engine, guided by two cables across the river. The barge can move back and forth sole from the force of the river waters on it, because of the design of the pulleys that hold the barge to the upper cable. It provides a way to cross and therefore to be on the upper Missouri for those who do not wish to take a canoe trip down the river. Carter Ferry is approximately three miles on a gravel road from the paved highway.
Fort Belknap Indian Reservation of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes, Montana. There are guided tours to various buttes, canyons and buffalo range. About 300 buffalo on a 10,000 acre reserve can be seen on daily guided tours. For further discussion, see the entry on Vermillion and Dixon: Buffalo Demise and Recovery. From Great Falls, Montana take U.S. Route 87 north to U.S. Route 2 east, then drive south on Montana Route 66 to the Fort Belknap Reservation Visitor Center. Or you can drive north from Billings, Montana on U.S. Route 87 to Montana Route 19 and on north to U.S. Route 191 to Route 66. For more information contact Tribal Buffalo Tours, RR1, Box 66, Fort Belknap Agency, Harlem, Montana 59526 (406) 353-2205.
Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, Montana. On their journey west, Lewis and Clark spent 13 days within today’s Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge. This refuge is the second largest wildlife refuge in the continental United States. There are some original prairie as well as sagebrush and ponderosa pines. A visitor can see raptors, antelope, deer, grouse and prairie dogs, and one of the largest remaining prairie elk herds. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service warns that the gravel roads of the tour route may become impassable during extended periods of rain, so use proper caution. For further discussion, see the entry on Little Missouri National Grasslands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park: Prairie Dogs, Black Footed Ferrets and the Short-Grass Prairie. The refuge has a 20-mile auto tour route that begins 55 miles south of Malta off US 191 and ends one-half mile north of the Missouri River on US 191. P.O. Box 110, Lewistown, Mt, 59457. (406)-538-8706.
James Kipp Recreation Area. This is a Bureau of Land Management facility at the upstream end of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. This recreation area provides the easiest automobile access to the Missouri Breaks. It is at the downstream end of the Wild and Scenic section of the Missouri. It is also a good boat access for pulling out after a float through that section, or for putting in for a float downstream through the Wildlife Refuge and to the reservoir above Fort Peck Dam. Lewis and Clark camped two and one-half miles upstream from this location on May 24, 1805. The recreation area is just south of the Robinson Bridge on Montana Route 191 and 19, which can be reached from the north from Malta or from the south from Billings by taking Montana Route 87 north to Montana 19. There is a auto tour via a dirt road, recommended only for high clearance four-wheel drive vehicles, and impassable when wet. (For an explanation about the soil that makes up that road, see entry 38 The Mouth of the Marias River: Which Was the Best Way West? See also entry 39, Ryan Dam: Scenery and Electricity. (Both are Dept. Of Interior facilities, but the Wildlife Refuge is managed by the U. S. Fish and Game. )
Crooked Falls, Montana. Located in Cascade County, Montana, north of Malmstrom Air Force Base at Great Falls, Montana.
Upper Missouri National Wild and Scenic River, Montana. One of a handful of stretches where the river is neither dammed nor channelized, you can go on a canoe camping trip and see the Missouri River much as it appeared in this area to Lewis and Clark. There are various put-in locations and detailed maps that are available for boaters from the Bureau of Land Management. A growing number of outfitters provide guided trips down this portion of the Missouri River including: Missouri River Outfitters, Fort Benton, Montana (406) 622-3295; and Missouri River Canoe Company, Virgelle, Montana (800)-426-2926. For further discussion, see the entries on Confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers: Wolves and the Conservation of Endangered Species and Fort Benton, Montana: Caches, Geology and the Location of Cities; Ryan Dam: Scenery and Electricity; Fort Peck Dam and the Pines Recreation Area: Grizzlies and the Conservation of Endangered Species) This 149 mile stretch of the Missouri River is located between Kipp State Park and Fort Benton, Montana.
Geraldine and Square Butte, Montana. Wildlife viewing area. This is a natural area under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management located on Route 80 between Fort Benton and Loma, Montana.
Earth Science Museum, Loma, Montana. The museum has gems, minerals, fossils and Indian artifact. Located 10 miles past Fort Benton off Hwy 86 on Main Street. (406) 739-4488.
Lewis and Clark Pass, Great Falls, Montana. Location of the footpath that follows the Indian trail around the Great Falls that was used by Lewis and Clark for their portage.
River Edge Trail, Great Falls, Montana. The trail passes by Crooked Falls, the only remaining undammed falls that Lewis and Clark portaged around. There are 7 miles of paved trail along the Missouri River from Gibson Park at 10^th Avenue South in downtown Great Fall to Giant Springs Heritage State Park, close by the new Interpretive Center is located. For more information contact Giant Springs Heritage State Park Giant Springs Road, Great Falls, MT 59408. (406) 727-8733.
Lewis and Clark National Forest, Great Falls, Montana. There is a scenic byway. From Great Falls take Route 89 southeast to the forest. 1101 15^th Street North, Box 869, Great Falls, MT, 59403, (602)-547-3361.
Canyon Ferry Lake, Helena, MT. There are numerous state recreation areas located in this region. Some have Lewis and Clark interpretation markers. For further discussion, see entry on Gates of the Mountain Recreation Area: Continents Collide and We Raft Along in Their Wake.
Ulm Pishkun Buffalo Jump, Ulm, MT. For further discussion, see entry on Judith Landing Recreation Area: How Early People May Have Affected Wildlife. From Great Falls take Interstate 15 west 12 miles to the exit for Ulm. Follow signs to a monument and picnic area. The picnic area is 4 miles from Interstate exit. For more information contact the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks at P.O. Box 6609, Great Falls, MT 59406. (406)-454-3441.
Vicinity of Three Forks, MT. The forests up-slope from the Missouri River provide an introduction to the forests of the Rockies and to the geology of the Rockies. For further discussion, see entry on Three Forks, MT: The Origin of the Missouri River.
Madison Buffalo Jump State Park, Bozeman, MT. Near the mouth of the Judith River, downstream from Great Falls, Lewis and Clark found what Lewis described as a buffalo jump. But there has been a disagreement as to whether this countryside could have been a location for such an activity. This method of killing buffalo was common, however, and you can see a buffalo jump used for 2,000 years. For further discussion, see entry on Judith Landing Recreation Area, Montana: How Early People May Have Affected Wildlife. From Three Forks take Interstate 90 east to Bozeman and take exit 283 south, following signs for the Buffalo Jump. From the exit on the interstate, the park is a 7 mile drive, 6 miles of the drive is on a gravel road. For more information contact the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks at 1400 South 19^th, Bozeman, MT 59715 or call (406)-994-6934.
National Bison Range, Montana. U. S. Fish and Wildlife National Wildlife Refuge. Although not a location seen by Lewis and Clark, it is one of the best places today to view bison, bighorn sheep, mule and white-tailed deer, and antelope that is in a reasonable travel distance from the Missouri River. The Columbia ground squirrel is common. They resemble prairie dogs but are smaller and whistle rather than bark. Like prairie dogs, they live in towns, come up out of burrows and sit on their back feet and look around. Also present but harder to see are red and gray fox, coyotes, a few couger, badger and porcupine..The Range has a herd of approximately 500 buffalo. The vegetation is short-grass prairie grading into pines on the upper slopes and to wetland vegetation along the drainage. The wetlands include cattails, rushes, and lush shrubs. The steep mountains of Glacier National Park are readily visible and beautiful as a backdrop to the range. The range has the highest density of big-game wildlife, in terms of pounds per acre, of any location in the United States. Wildlife can be readily seen on most days, but require attention to the countryside. I have watched people in cars busy talking with each other drive past 18 bighorn sheep just off the road in the shade of some trees. The range is most easily reached from Missoula, Montana. Take Interstate 90 north to US 93. Follow signs to Glacier National Park and the Bison Range. At Ravalli follow the sign to the Bison Range that take you to the range. It is approximately 50 miles from Missoula to the Range.
Pompey’s Pillar, Billings, MT. This Bureau of Land Management and National Historic Landmark is the only known existing location where Clark inscribed his name. On July 25th, 1806, Clark wrote in his journal that the rock which he named Pompey’s Tower was “200 feet high and 400 paces in circumference and only accessible on one side. The natives have engraved on the face of this rock the figures of animals, etc., near which I mark my name and the day of the month and year.” Many birds come through this area including bald eagles and white pelicans. From this location you can see the cottonwoods along the Yellowstone River. For further discussion, see entry on Confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri Rivers: Wolves and the Conservation of Endangered Species.
Gallatin National Forest, Bozeman, MT. Clark passed through the area where Bozeman is now on July 14th, 1806. For further discussion, see entry on Three Forks, MT: The Origin of the Missouri River.
Greycliff Prairie Dog Town State Monument Wildlife Viewing Area, Billings, MT. This 98 acre park is open year round. There are many interpretive displays that introduce the visitor to the blacktailed prairie dog community. For further discussion, see entry on Little Missouri National Grasslands and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota: Prairie Dogs, Black Footed Ferrets and the Short-Grass Prairie. Located off Interstate 90 about 77 miles west of Billings, Montana. For more information contact Montana fish, Wildlife and Parks at 2300 Lake Elmo Drive, Billings, Mt 59105 or call them at (406)-252-4654.
Makoshika State Park, Glendive MT, a major site for dinosaurs and for badlands countryside. This park shows the landscape that was laid down under the sea that once existed in Montana, and was uplifted when the Rockies were formed. The park contains the famous “Cretaceous-tertiary boundary” — the time when many dinosaurs went extinct. (406) 365-6256. Montana Dept. Of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. See Entry about Gates of the Mountains.

Afterward by Robert Redford – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

Afterward

By Robert Redford

As we approach the bicentennial of Lewis & Clark’s Voyage of Discovery, Dan Botkin’s book reveals the original Missouri now exists mainly on the pages of their journals. Were the two explorers with us today, they would hardly recognize most of the Missouri River. Just think about that for a minute. The same exquisite, natural, wild places and wild inhabitants that provided these great explorers the challenges and adventure, wonderment and inspiration, human and spiritual fulfillment so vividly brought to life in their cherished journals would be simply, unrecognizable to them.

It goes without saying that their loss is our loss. But it is also the loss of generations to follow, who will not have the opportunity to reap the same challenges, inspiration and fulfillment that Lewis & Clark did from their exploration of America’s longest and once great river. The renewal of the soul and spirit that came with their adventures will be something only to be imagined rather than to be experienced.

The picture painted does indeed have strokes of bleakness. But there is also hope in its broad canvass. While certain remnants of the Missouri River of Lewis & Clark can never be brought back to their original natural wonder, and some of its wild inhabitants will never be seen there again, there’s still an opportunity to bring significant portions back to their original glory. It’s not too late to restore some of what Lewis & Clark witnessed and explored for our children, and theirs.

The approach of the bicentennial of Lewis & Clark’s voyages can do more than remind us of what has been lost – it can serve as a national call to action to restore as much of the original greatness as possible, using the pages of their journal as our blueprint. This may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all of us to not only honor the memory of these phenomenal men, but to also honor those that follow us in this world by leaving a source of inspiration that might not exist otherwise.

To begin this national call to action American Rivers has proposed a four-part strategy to restore the Missouri and revitalize riverside communities:

Restore Natural Places

Riverside Communities and resource managers can create a string of natural places along the Missouri – including pockets of floodplain forest and prairie, side channels, sandbars and islands. Restoring shallow water and floodplain habitat will help meet the needs of river wildlife by providing nesting, foraging and spawning areas.

Manage Dams for Wildlife and People

The Missouri’s dams should be operated to provide rising flows in the spring to trigger fish reproduction and cottonwood regeneration, and declining flows during the summer to support nesting wildlife and recreation. Releasing more water in the spring will trigger reproduction by river wildlife, build sandbars, and aid cottonwood regeneration. Reducing flows in the summer will aid young fish and birds like terns and plovers.

Revitalize Riverfronts and Improve River Access

Communities can revitalize their riverfronts in order to attract businesses, residents and tourists, helping boost the economic health of cities and towns along and near the Missouri. Today, many towns and cities are recognizing the river’s potential as a community center, creating riverside parks and nature preserves connected by trails and greenways.

Reduce Impacts of Grazing

Ranchers and land managers should work together to reduce the impacts of grazing along the Wild and Scenic segment of the Missouri in Montana. Scientists predict that cottonwoods will soon be virtually absent unless action is taken.

The work has already begun as evidenced in the many illustrations in Dan Botkin’s book of communities taking action toward the renewal of the Missouri River. While we should find inspiration in this, we cannot afford to be complacent. Whether or not we live near the once great Missouri, we can embrace it as an important part of our national heritage and the heritage we will leave for future generations. Each and every one of us can make a difference as we begin our very own voyage, the voyage of recovery. Supporting the efforts of American Rivers in the launch of this modern day voyage is a good first step.

By Robert Redford

To begin this national call to action American Rivers has proposed a four-part strategy to restore the Missouri and revitalize riverside communities:

Restore Natural Places

Manage Dams for Wildlife and People

Revitalize Riverfronts and Improve River Access

Reduce Impacts of Grazing

Chapter 42 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

42. Three Forks, Montana: Headwaters of the Missouri River

Take Interstate 90 to exit 278 and go north to Missouri Headwaters State Park. You can take this route south to the town of Three Forks, a pleasant village.

As the expedition reached the headwaters of the Missouri, traveling on the river became more and more difficult. The river was ever more shallow, and the men had to drag the canoes over the rapids. The river current, descending from the steep mountains, was so swift that it was impossible for the men to paddle upstream even where the water was deep enough for the canoes to float. It took great energy to advance the canoes with line and poles.

Lewis and Clark divided the expedition into an advance group that went ahead on foot to explore the river and decide the best route, and a main group that pulled and poled the boats upstream. The exertion became exhausting and dangerous. Charbonneau sprained an ankle hiking in the rough country. Sergeant Gass fell in one of the boats and injured his back so that he could not help pull or push the boats. Lewis assigned him to the advanced party on land.

During the winter at Fort Mandan, the Indians had told Lewis and Clark that when they followed the Missouri River they would arrive at “three forks” where three smaller rivers came together and flowed as one downstream. Clark took a small group of men and headed upstream and, on July 25, 1805, was the first to arrive at this location, which he called “Three Forks.” Lewis arrived with the main party two days later, July 27, 1805. Not far downstream from the three forks, the river passed through a narrow channel “hemned in by high cliffs.” Lewis climbed to the top of one of these cliffs a “beautifull spot” where he “commanded a most perfect view of the neighbouring country”. Below he could make out the three branches that flowed toward each other and met, two meeting upstream and then the third, the southeastern fork, joining the others a little farther downstream. Each passed for many miles through large green meadows – riverside wetlands and floodplains. Between the southeastern branch and the middle branch he saw “a distant range of lofty mountains” with “snow-clad tops.” The mountains that would be one of their greatest tests and which they hoped would provide a short route to the Columbia, were near.

Rejoining the main party, he found that the cliffs soon opened up. He passed the southeastern fork and followed the southwestern one for only one and three-fourths miles, where he set up camp. “Beleiving this to be an essential point in the geography of this western part of the Continent,” he wrote, “I determined to remain at all events untill I obtained the necessary data for fixing its latitude Longitude.” They settled in, unloaded the canoes, secured their goods on shore, and several men went out to hunt.

Having settled his men in camp, Lewis walked through the streamside meadows and examined the middle and southwestern forks, whose junction was upstream from the location of where the southeastern stream joined the main river. Once again, a question that had caused the expedition considerable time came to the fore: Which was the Missouri? “I walked down the middle fork and examined and compared it with the S.W. fork,” Lewis wrote, “but could not satisfy myself which was the largest stream.” He decided that neither could be called the Missouri in preference to the other, because “they appeared if they had been cast in the same mould” and there was “no difference in character or size.” Each was about 90 yards wide.

Clark soon after rejoined the main body, having explored the southwestern branch some 25 miles above, during which he suffered from sunstroke and lack of water and was sick at the camp for several days. Reflecting on the similarity of these three branches, Clark and Lewis decided to call none of these the Missouri and instead consider them separate rivers and give each its own name. They decided that the confluence of these three streams would thereby be marked as the headwaters of the Missouri. They named the southwest fork the Jefferson, the middle fork the Madison, and the southeast fork “Gallitin’s River in honor of Albert Gallitin.”

In a sense, the decision not to call any of these these tributaries the Missouri was arbitrary, as events of the next weeks demonstrated. After several days stay at Three Forks, they decided that the southwestern fork, the Jefferson, was most likely the river that would take them furthest west and into the mountains, and chose to follow it to its headwaters. Once again the expedition divided into groups.

Lewis took a few men and followed an Indian road into the foothills, where they experienced great difficulties. At one height of land, Drewyer “missed his step and had a very dangerous fall, he sprained one of his fingers and hirt his leg very much,” Lewis wrote on August 5. Meanwhile the body of the expedition, still trying to proceed upstream by boat, had its own accidents. One of the canoes overturned on August 6 “and all the bagage wet, the medecine box among other articles,” In addition, “two other canoes had filled with water and wet their cargoes completely,” Lewis wrote, wetting their corn meal and many presents they had for the Indians. One of the men, Whitehouse, was thrown from a canoe which then turned and came over him and “pressed him to the bottom as she passed over him,” Lewis wrote, “had the water been 2 inches shallower he must have been crushed to death.”

But they persevered, crossing small streams and rough country until they reached what Lewis concluded was the very beginning of the Jefferson. And there he stopped and drank the water. “Judge then of the pleasure I felt in allying my thirst with this pure and ice cold water which issues from the base of a low mountain or hill,” he wrote, for he had reached “the most distant fountain of the waters of the mighty Missouri in search of which we have spent so many toilsome days and writless nights. Thus far I had accomplished one of those great objects on which my mind had been unalterably fixed for many years.”

Others of the crew were equally joyful. “Two miles below McNeal stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri,” Lewis noted, using that name for the first of the headwaters that he had been calling the Jefferson. Having decided that this stream took them the farthest into the Rockies and the nearest to the continental divide, Lewis could have named the southwest branch the Missouri River. But he did not; the name “Jefferson River” remained. No matter, it is arbitrary. The feat, the struggle, the long and dangerous trip had accomplished it first major objective.

Having drunk from the Missouri’s first water, Lewis walked up to the top of this eastern slope, crossing the continental divide – the location where all rivers to the east flowed into the Missouri to the Mississippi and to the Gulf of Mexico, or North, east of the Rockies to Hudson Bay, and all the rivers to the west flowed to the Pacific Ocean. He walked a short way down the western slope. “I now decended the mountain about 3/4 of a mile,” he wrote, “to a handsome bold running Creek of cold Clear water. Here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia river.” He was drinking out of Horseshoe Bend Creek, a tributary of the Lemhi River, which in turns flows into the Salmon and Snake and then into the Columbia. The trip up the Missouri was completed.

As they had traveled from the great falls upstream to the continental divide, the expedition passed through an ecological transition, from the Great Plains to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. New animals and plants appeared on the landscape. On August 1, 1805, Clark shot a bighorn sheep – which they ate – and Lewis saw “a flock of the black or dark brown pheasants,” the blue grouse, one of which they shot, examined, and described. It was a new species, “fully a third larger than the common phesant of the Atlantic states,” Lewis wrote, and then set down the first scientific description of this bird. The same day Lewis saw “a blue bird about the size of the common robbin,” whose call and behavior he described. It was the pinyon jay, and his description of this bird was also a scientific first. On August 3, Fields killed a mountain lion. The animals of the plains were in their past, behind them; the animals of the mountains were coming into view.

Lewis was wary of this change, because it meant a transition from the abundant big game of the plains, especially the buffalo, to the wildlife-poor forests and mountains. The wealth of the wildlife in this country was in and near the streams — beaver and otter in great abundance, along with fish and water birds. On August 3, Clark noted that they saw “great numbers of Beaver Otter &c. Some fish trout & bottle nose.” This change in the abundance of big game animals was characteristic worldwide of a transition from grasslands to forests. The greatest abundance of big game wildlife occurs in grasslands, as on the Serengeti Plains in Africa, declining rapidly in abundance with forest cover, as occurs in Africa when one travels west to the tropical rain forests. Forests, whatever else their beauty, ecological value, and economic worth, are meager in meat for people to eat.

Although they were entering the mountains where forests usually dominate, they found few trees. “The moutains are extreemly bare of timber” so that they were forced to hike “through steep valleys exposed to the heat of the sun without shade and scarecely a breath of air, ” Lewis wrote on August 1, 1805. The east slope of the mountains was in the rainshadow of the Rockies. A rainshadow occurs where moisture-full breezes from the Pacific Ocean flow inland and are pushed upwards by the mountains. Rising, these cool, condensing their water, which is released as rain and falls on the western slopes and the mountain summits. The air, thus dried, descends down the eastern slope and, sinking, is warmed and expands, and is able to absorb moisture from the land. Dry itself, it makes the land below it even drier. The rivers and streams were fed by the snows on the summits, but the surrounding, lower elevation countryside was dry. As a result, the expedition forced their canoes upstream against strong water currents but hiked through dry country.

Not only did the mountains create a dry, tree-poor climate, but the Indians may have had an additional effect. “The Indians appear on some parts of the river to have distroyed a great proportion of the little timber which there is by seting fire to the bottoms,” Lewis wrote on August 4.

Their diet began to shift from meat of the plains to mountain fruits — berries and currants. “We feasted suptuously on our wild fruit particularly the yellow courant and the deep purple servicebury which I found to be excellent,” Lewis wrote on August 2, 1805. Everything that was happening to them was influenced to a great degree by the natural history of the location, by the geological formations that influence the climate, by the vegetation that was in turn influenced by that climate, by the change in wildlife that was a result of the change in vegetation and the decrease in rainfall. The steepness of the streams, their rapid and dangerous currents, and the steep and rough country, were the products of the ancient and great mountain building events that began about 90 million years ago to form the Rocky Mountains and, as a result, to produce the Missouri River. Ancient geological processes and modern ecological processes combined to challenge the expedition with tough going, little water except in the streams, and less and less game.

It was thus a location of great peril to the expedition, in which the Indians had to – and would – play an important role. As Lewis wrote on July 27 “we begin to feel considerable anxiety with respect to the Snake Indians. if we do not find them or some other nation who have horses I fear the successfull issue of our voyage will be very doubtfull or at all events much more difficult in it’s accomplishment.”

Lewis understood the changes to be expected in the transition from plains to mountains. On foot and by stream, Lewis and Clark had developed their own understanding of the natural history of the Missouri River. That learning was now at an end, to be replaced by the harsh lessons of the mountains and the Columbia River to the west.

Chapter 41 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

41. Gates of the Mountains: Continents Collide and We Are Rafted Along in Their Wake

Traveling south on Interstate 15, about 65 miles south of Great Falls, take the exit to the Gates of the Mountains Recreation Area. Drive east on a paved road about four miles to the recreation area. The area between Great Falls and Helena is an excellent place to experience the river where it has cut a broad and scenic canyon — either by following an access road and trail system along the river or by boat or raft. This is also a good area for bicycling and picnicking. There are several good locations between Great Falls and Helena to launch and take out a boat, among them Craig and Wolf Creek. Boat trips into the Gates of the Mountains are available at the recreation area (406) 458-5421.

On Friday, July 19, 1805, the expedition neared the location of modern Helena, Montana and came to an area of impressive scenery. In the evening Lewis wrote that “we entered much the most remarkable clifts that we have yet seen.” They seemed to “rise from the waters edge on either side perpendicularly to the hight of about 1200 feet.” It was impressive and a little forbidding. “Every object here wears a dark and gloomy aspect. The tow[er]ing and projecting rocks in many places seem ready to tumble on us,” Lewis continued, then discussed the geology of the location, as Jefferson had instructed him to do. “The river appears to have forced it’s way through this immence body of solid rock for the distance of 5 3/4 miles and where it makes it’s exit below has thrown on either side vast collumns of rocks mountains high,” he wrote. It was so steep that for more than a mile there was only “a few yards in extent on which a man could rest the soal of his foot.” Then Lewis notes, with a bit of understatement, “It was late in the evening before I entered this place and was obliged to continue my route untill sometime after dark before I found a place sufficiently large to encamp my small party.”

The rocks were of many shades and hue, from black to “yelloish brown and light creem colourd yellow.” Clark described the hills as made up of “a dark grey Stone & a redish brown intermixed and no one Clift is Solid rock, all the rocks of everry description is in Small pices appears to have been broken by Some Convulsion.” The snow-capped mountains were in view, so Lewis wrote that “from the singular appearance of this place I called it the gates of the rocky mountains.”

Today the land nearby the river is little developed and, in spite of the fact that Gates of the Mountains is now between the reservoirs of Holter and Hauser Dams on the Missouri, this area looks much as Lewis and Clark saw it. Large areas are becoming protected for conservation. The Montana Land Reliance has obtained conservation easements on 24 ranches, totaling 73,000 acres, protecting almost 150 miles of streams and riverbanks.

In early May the daunting mountains are snow-capped, while the land just above the river is stark and dry, after an exceptionally warm early spring. At the Gates of the Mountain Recreation Area it is hot, just the way Lewis described it. “Whever we get a view of the lofty summits of the mountains the snow presents itself,” he wrote, “ alto’ we are almost suffocated in this confined vally with heat.” Above the river Lewis saw Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine, a “scattering of timber on the river and in the valley.” There were bighorn sheep, beaver, and otter. These are still found in this area today and if if you are lucky you will see one of them. The area also remains a prime habitat for many birds, including pelicans, gulls, bald eagles, merganzers, meadowlarks, osprey, loons, Canada geese, peregrine falcons, and the turkey vulture — to name a few of the 118 species spotted over a year by Tim Crawford, director of the Gates of the Mountains Foundation.

Crawford maintains the recreation area and conducts boat tours on three large open air river boats. Tours run several times a day from Memorial Day until October and during this time you can travel on a boat through the same passage between the cliffs where Lewis and Clark came. A tour lasts close to two hours and includes a stop at Meriweather picnic area, where Crawfold speculates the expedition camped for a night. From there, hikers may choose to explore the Gates of the Mountains wilderness area, catching a later boat ride back to shore.

We’re a little early for a tour, but we watch as people prepare their boats for the season. The day is warm with a light breeze, the sky a deep blue. Despite activity in the area, as we look out on the expanse of Holter Lake the scene is one of peace and tranquility, unlike the feeling Lewis must have had as the expedition fought its way through the canyon to find a safe place to spend the night.

The power of the river and the even more powerful forces that created the surrounding mountains capture your attention when you visit this location. If you take a boat tour, you might experience the power of the river as it cuts through the mountainous canyons and get a sense of the awe men of the expedition must have felt as they saw the nearby canyon opening up to the valley in the distance and snow-capped mountains beyond. Crawford tells us the tour boat runs in a sort of circle within the close canyon area, giving the impression to passengers of the mountains opening and closing, like a gate.

“The river appears to have woarn a passage just the width of it’s channel or 150 yrds,” Lewis wrote. Confronted with such an amazing landscape, one can’t help wondering what brings us the mountains. Since the early nineteenth century, soon after the Lewis and Clark journey, early geologists recognized the processes of mountain building and mountain erosion. But no one had an explanation about how this mountain building came about; where came the energy for the incredible forces that must have been involved. The answer is one of the great discoveries of twentieth century geology.

In 1914 Alfred Wegener, a German scientist, proposed a radical theory that continents moved – drifted – based on the similarity of fossils of animals and plants found on different continents, and the parallelism of coastlines of African and South America. But at the time the theory was dismissed; no one could conceive of a source of energy for that process, and it was too radical an idea for the dominant theories about the constancy of nature. As the understanding of radioactivity increased, it became clear that the decay of radioactive elements deep in the Earth provided a source of energy and with intense heat and pressure the material forming the crust of the Earth could act as a semi-liquid. Today this theory of plate tectonics is well accepted.

The term tectonics comes from the Greek word for carpenter or builder. And if the river is the painter, the continents are the carpenters. Mountains come about from the collision of the gigantic continental plates in motion. The deep earth acts as a semiliquid and the cooler, lighter continents float on the surface, shifting about over time. The “solid” earth on which we stand moves. Heated from below, the continents are to the rest of the Earth as the skim that forms on the top of chocolate pudding. The depth of the continents are no thicker relative to the rest of the planet than the skim on the pudding. When the huge continental plates collide, mountains form as mere wrinkles on the surface.

The plates move slowly, but not so slowly that the movement cannot be measured. The average rate is about 3 ½ inches a year — 108 inches in the two hundred years since Lewis and Clark passed by the Gates of the Mountains. So where we stand today the Missouri River is nine feet further west in terms of a fixed longitude on the Earth, than it was when Lewis and Clark were here.

Mountains have formed whenever continental plates collide, and some mountains are old, like the Appalachians of Virginia, the home of Lewis and Clark. The Rocky Mountains Lewis and Clark confronted at Gates of the Mountain, and were soon to cross, are comparatively young mountains, too young to have been worn smooth by rivers like the Gallatin, Jefferson and Madison, the rivers that form the Missouri. That geological youth meant that in 1804 as in our time the Rockies were still high, steep, and rough, a challenge unexpected by the expedition.

Geologist Brian Skinner has written that “it is not just the continents that move, it is the entire lithosphere. The continents, the ocean basins, and everything else on the surface of the Earth are moving along like passengers on large rafts; the rafts are huge plates of lithosphere that float on the underlying convecting material.”

The colliding continental plates that formed the Rockies began their mountain building here near the end of the age of the dinosaurs and at the beginning of the age of mammals, more than 60 million years ago. They are built from even more ancient deposits. The lighter, brighter colored rocks are ancient limestones that geologists call part of the Madison formation. These formed in a seabed, deposits of ancient seashells and other materials from biological processes, in the Mississippian, more than 300 million years ago, when shallow seas were common on many continents, especially in North America. The darker gray rocks that Clark described are even older. They are Greyson Shale formed more than 600 million years ago.

Before the Rocky Mountains began to rise, when dinosaurs roamed this country, most of Montana was coastline — near sea level or under water, part of a shallow sea that covered two-thirds of the state. After a continental plate previously in the Pacific Ocean collided with the plate that formed North America, several things happened: The colliding westward plate formed the land that is now Washington and Oregon, where Lewis and Clark were soon to go. The Rockies began to rise; the land to the east that had been seashore rose also above sea level, and the sea was forced to retreat eastward.

Before the Rocky Mountains there was no Missouri River, and without the Rocky Mountains there would still be none. A river is a necessary consequence of a mountain range. Water must flow downhill and as it does it begins to carry sediment and erode a path. Tributaries begin to come together and form a young river. The young river cuts steeply through the rocks. But just how a river will form depends on bedrock, climate, and the stresses and strains, the cracks and bends, to which the rocks have been subjected over their longer history on the Earth.

And so at Gates of the Mountain you have a dramatic view, as did Lewis and Clark, of these primary forces that bring us the landscape from which begins the river that drains one-sixth of the continental United States. If you are able to take one of the excursion boats through Gates of the Mountain, you can imagine that you are on the continental raft being carried on a journey into the collision of continental plates. This is part of the new view of our planet, one of constant motion at all scales, all materials, all levels. It is a great journey, symbolized by the travel of Lewis and Clark up the Missouri River through the Gates of the Mountains.

Chapter 40 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

40. Giant Springs and Great Falls: Huge Quantities of Fresh Water Rise and Descend as Hail and Rain

The Giant Springs is in Great Falls, Montana. From Interstate 94, take the Route 87 exit north, then take the east fork just before the Missouri River. Follow 87 until Giant Springs Road veers to the left and Route 87 goes away from the river. The park where the Giant Springs is located near this intersection.

On June 18, 1805, Lewis and Clark were approaching and scouting out the great falls on the Missouri River, to prepare for the portage of their materials around the falls, a task that was to take them about a month, from June 21st to July 14, 1805. Clark set out early and, after passing the second of the great waterfalls, came on “the largest fountain or Spring I ever Saw.” He made an estimate that this was “the largest in America Known.” He was correct; the giant springs has been measured to discharge as much as 389 million gallons a day, with more recent measurements of 174 million to 213 million per day. This is enough water to cover one to two square miles a foot deep every day! “This water boils up from under the rocks near the edge of the river and falls imediately into the river 8 feet and keeps its Colour for ½ a mile which is emencely Clear and of a bluish Cast,” he wrote.

Eleven days later, on June 29, 1805, Lewis set out to see the same spring with the hunter and French-Canadian, Drewyer. On his way, Lewis described the countryside as “a level beautiful plain for about Six miles.” Lewis too concluded that the fountain, as he called it, was “the largest I ever held.” More likely than Clark to dwell on aesthetics, Lewis wrote that “the hadsome cascade which it affords over some steep and irregular rocks in it’s passage to the river adds not a little to it’s beauty.” But like Clark, he also makes measurements, writing that the spring was about 25 yards from the river, “situated in a pretty little level plain, and has a suddon decent of about 6 feet in one part of it’s course.” He noted, as did Clark, that the water was “extreemly tranparent and cold; nor is it impregnated with lime or any other extranious matter which I can discover, but is very pure and pleasent.” There was so much water moving so quickly out of the ground that Lewis observed “the water of the fountain boil up with such force near it’s center that it’s surface in that part seems even higher than the surrounding earth which is a firm handsom terf of fine green grass.”

Today the giant springs is in a city park within an urban setting. In the twentieth century, Great Falls developed around the production of electricity from Ryan Dam downstream whose reservoir flooded and covers the great falls for which the city is named and around which the expedition portaged. At one time, Anaconda Copper had a large refining plant here to convert ore to metal, using the electric power from Ryan Dam. Great Falls is a combination of pleasant residential, tired-out industrial, and pretty riverfront. All the riverfront is public land, and there is a marina and, here and there walkways and picnic tables.

We visited the springs in early August. The city’s River’s Edge Trail goes from the center of the city to Giant Springs. Along this trail botanists recently have found 55 of the plant species collected by Lewis and Clark. The springs, the trail, and the Great Falls Interpretive Center celebrate the Lewis and Clark expedition. It was near sundown and families with small children strolled along the riverfront path. A tern flew overhead. Canada geese and a gull were at the springs. A steady breeze blew downriver. We watched the natural, but incredible amount of bubbling water spewing out alongside and into the Missouri River, creating rapids that spread into the river. For a good distance the clear waters of the spring flowed alongside the muddy waters of the Missouri without mingling.

And where does all this water come from, we wondered. A sign at the Giant Springs told us about the geological processes that created the springs. A formation of limestone, called Madison limestone, lies under most of Eastern Montana. It was formed about 250 million years ago from the deposits of shells and other biological processes in the bed of an ancient sea. Since the formation of the Rocky Mountains, which began about 90 million years ago, each year rainfall and snow soak into the limestone where it is exposed on the slopes of the Little Belt Mountains. From there the water drains downward and then flows through openings in the limestone to the Great Falls area. Next, under pressure because the water starts at a high elevation, the water flows upward and out at Giant Springs. A fracture in this limestone allows the water to be pushed up. The spring is a giant artesian well. Flowing through limestone, the water dissolves calcium and magnesium that it brings to the surface.

On their way to the Giant Springs, Lewis and Drewyer were “overtaken by a violent gust of wind and rain from the S. W. attended with thunder and Litning.” They took shelter “in a little gully wher there were some broad stones” that Lewis thought he could use to protect his head from hail. They remained for about an hour “without shelter and took a copious drenching,” Lewis wrote.

At the same time, Clark was ascending the riverside, along the series of falls, so that he could retake some notes about the river that he had lost on his previous ascent. With him was Charbonneau, the French-Canadian interpreter, his Indian wife, Sacagawea, her baby boy, and York, the only black person on the expedition. They too saw the black cloud coming from the west. Clark “looked about for a shelter but could find none without being in great danger of being blown into the river should the wind prove as violent as it sometimes is on those occasions in these plains.” Clark found a deep ravine with “shelveing rocks” where they took shelter. He put his guns and the compass under one of these rocks. “Soon after a torrent of rain and hail fell more violent than ever I Saw before,” Clark wrote.

The intensity was so great that it “felt like one voley of water falling from the heavens” and produced a flow a water into the ravine where he and Sacagawea had taken shelter “with emence force tareing every thing before it takeing with it large rocks & mud,” he continued. It was clear that they had to get out of the ravine which was flooding rapidly. He took his gun in his left hand and used his right to help Sacagawea, who was carrying her baby. Charbonneau, meanwhile, was trying to pull his wife up. “Before I got out of the bottom of the revein,” Clark wrote, ”the water was up to my waste & wet my watch.”

By the time he reached the top of the ravine, he estimated at least 15 feet of water had risen. Sacagawea’s baby had lost his clothes, she was wet and cold and “just recovering from a Severe indispostion.” Clark was “fearfull of a relaps.”

Reading this account from the journals that evening, we then came back the next day and looked at the Giant Springs again. It was an unlikely setting for one to imagine the incredible storm of rare intensity that had struck Lewis and Clark at slightly different locations near the springs. On this day, all seemed as quiet and peaceful as the design of human artifice could hope.

But other members of the expedition also suffered from that storm as they moved materials on the portage. “Some nearly killed one knocked down three times and other without hats or any thing on their head bloodey & Complained verry much,” Clark wrote. He gave everybody a little grog.

In the midst of the escape, he had lost the expedition’s large and best compass, which was a “serious loss” he wrote. Fortunately, the next morning two of the men went to the falls and found the compass covered with mud and sand, but everything else, including a tomahawk, shot pouch, powder and balls, moccasins, and the baby’s clothes and bedding, were gone. These men found that the place where Clark had sought shelter the day before was “filled with huge rocks.”

Such rare events not only threatened the lives of Clark, Sacagawea and her baby, but also cause major changes to natural areas, leading to new channels in a river, clearings in a forest. These rare, not often seen, events can play a major role in the dynamics of life on the Earth, resetting the ecological clock to start natural processes of restoration and recovery, to which many species are adapted. It is well that we be aware of them though we rarely experience them.

Chapter 39 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

39. Ryan Dam: Scenery and Electricity

In Great Falls take 15th St. north, which is Route 87 North, crossing the Missouri River. Take Route 87 north 6 miles and turn right at a sign for Ryan Dam onto a paved road; follow signs taking the right hand road at a fork in the road. The road descends deeply through the bluffs by the river to a parking lot where a sign says “Montana Power Company Welcomes You.” The total distance from Great Falls is 15 miles. Walk across the footbridge to a park on the island in the river.

Lewis described the five falls on the upper Missouri River, for which the city of Great Falls is named, as one of the most beautiful scenes he had ever witnessed. I had been fascinated by his long description of these falls ever since I first read the Lewis and Clark journals, and was anxious to see what remained of that scenery. Having spent the night in Great Falls, Montana, we drove on an August afternoon to Ryan Dam, the site of one of those falls.

“From the extremity of this rolling country I overlook the most beautiful and level plain of great extent for at least fifty or sixty miles,” Lewis had written on Thursday, June 13, 1805, and within this plain “were infinitely more buffalo than I had ever before witnessed at a view.” Just as Lewis had described it, we saw a rolling but rather level plain, now cattle grazing land, but with the same general aspect. The river has incised itself within this landscape, cutting through the level plain, so that traveling away from the river, on a main road such as Route 87, you are not aware that one of the greatest rivers of the world is nearby. It isn’t visible.

Rising out of this plain Lewis saw “two curious mountains” that were “square figures,” probably the buttes just south of Black Horse Lake that we could see as we drove on Route 87. Lewis describes these as having perpendicular sides rising to a height of 250 feet and appearing to be formed of yellow clay.

On that same day, Lewis found the first of the great falls, which is now at the site of Ryan Dam. He was traveling with four of the men of the expedition: Fields, Drewyer – one of the main hunters of the expedition – Gibson and Goodrich, and he sent the first three to kill some game for meat and then join him and Goodrich at the river for dinner.

“I had proceeded on this course about two miles with Goodrich at some distance behind me when my ears were saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water and advancing a little further I saw the spray rise above the plain like a column of smoke which would frequently disperse again in an instant caused I presumed by the wind which proved pretty hard from the southwest,” Lewis wrote, and “soon began to make a roaring too tremendous to be mistaken for any cause short of the Great Falls of the Missouri.” This was a welcome sound because the Indians had told them earlier that the true Missouri River, the river that would lead them as far into the mountains as possible, had great water falls on it.

Walking 16 miles, he and Goodrich reached the falls at noon. There they were, a small party in the midst of a huge region that was unmapped and unknown to his civilization. Reading his accounts, I admired the energy and ambition with which he rushed to see a place of beauty, when the expedition was about to be confronted with one of their most difficult tasks — portaging their equipment around these falls, which would take them about a month. But this was not what was in Lewis’s mind at the moment. He heard the sound of a great fall of water and rushed to see what he hoped would be a beautiful view.

At a fork in the road, a sign directed us to the right, and the road descended steeply along a sheer, almost vertical sandstone bluff, to the riverside and a parking lot. As he neared this point Lewis wrote that “I hurried down the hill which was about 200 ft. high and difficult of access to gaze on this sublimely grand spectacle. I took my position on the top of some rocks about 20 ft. high opposite the center of the falls.”

We parked and joined a summer crowd and strolled along a tree-shaded walk to a suspension foot bridge that led over the river to Ryan Island. We walked over the bridge and strolled up the path to where we could watch the water cascading from the dam.

When Lewis descended the steep slope, he saw a double falls, one just back of and above the other. The second, which he wrote was “an even sheet of water falling over a precipice of at least 80 feet” formed, with the first, “the grandest sight I ever beheld.” The second falls was especially beautiful, because “the irregular and somewhat projecting rocks below receive the water in its passage down and breaks it into a perfect white foam which assumes a thousand forms in a moment, sometimes flying up in jets of sparkling foam to the height of 15 or 20 ft. and are scarcely formed before large rolling bodies of the same beaten and foaming water is thrown over and concealed them,” he wrote. The rocks appear to be perfectly placed to break up the water most beautifully.

Below in the river he saw an “abutment of rocks” that “defends a handsome little bottom grove of about three acres” and which was “agreeably shaded with some cottonwood trees. In the lower extremity of the bottom there was a very thick grove of the same kind of trees which are small.” The land was not uninhabited; he saw among the trees several Indian lodges “formed of sticks.”

The view that we saw at the dam was pretty, and there were people taking pictures, eating snacks, and enjoying the coolness of the air that rose from the river. I thought about Lewis’s extensive and detailed descriptions of the falls, most of which were now no longer visible, because they are under the water of the reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams.

For most of the journey, Lewis and Clark had maintained a rather distant and professional tone in their notes. Once in a while one of them would write that they saw a beautiful prairie or a wonderful and amazing number of animals, but these expressions about the beauty of nature were usually brief and reserved. At the time of their expedition, a great change was taking place in western civilization concerning the idea of natural beauty. The romantic poets of England — Wordsworth and Coleridge especially — were writing that the wildness of the Alps, with their fearsome heights, cliffs, ice, and wind, were objects of beauty.

Only a few decades before, mountains were perceived, as they had been since Greek and Roman times, as horrible places, out of symmetry and therefore ugly. Until Lewis reaches the great falls, a reader of the journals would hardly know that Lewis was aware of such a debate over aesthetics and nature. But something happened to him at the falls, and he opened up and wrote at considerable length about his own wonder at the beauty of the scenery, in the style of his time. On that summer day, now long ago, he was responding to what you and I seek today when we go to Yosemite, to the Grand Canyon, to the Tetons, or why people ski at Lake Tahoe rather than at more convenient locations, why vacationers travel from Europe and America to Fiji and Tahiti — to find a place of beauty in which they can enjoy nature and better enjoy themselves. Sent by President Jefferson to find a route to the Pacific and to observe the condition of the countryside, its plants, animals, and minerals, traveling as military captains in charge of a group of rough men through unknown country wrought with great dangers, for the most part the two leaders do not admit in their notes that they have these sensitivities, they do not take the time or have the time, to just plain wonder at the beauty of the American West.

But at this first set of falls, Lewis saw a rainbow in the spray as the sun reflected off the water. This, he wrote, “adds not a little to the beauty of this majestical grand scenery.” And for once he sought within himself an ability to express the beauty of the landscape, not just its capabilities. “After writing this imperfect description I again view the falls and am so much disgusted with the imperfect idea which is conveyed in the scene that I determine to draw my pen across it and begin again, but then reflected that I could not perhaps succeed better,” he wrote. He wishes for “the pencil of Salvator Rosa” a seventeenth century Italian landscape painter of wild and desolate scenes, and for “the pen of Thompson,” an eighteenth century Scottish poet who was one of the forerunners of the Romantic movement. He wishes that he had a camera obscura — the precursor of a photographic camera, basically a small room open only to the light outside through a lens that cast the image of the outside scene on a wall, and which artists could then trace exactly.

We walked around the entire island, enjoyed the shade of the trees and looked at the Missouri River from all sides. It was the kind of pleasant afternoon outing that is depicted by the French Impressionists when they painted Sunday strollers carrying parasols along the Seine River.

The next day, June 14, 1805, Lewis reached several more of the falls and was most impressed with one he called Rainbow Falls, which is now much altered by Rainbow Dam. This is “one of the most beautiful objects in nature,” he wrote. Lewis spent some time trying to decide which of the two, the falls he had seen the day before or this one, was the most beautiful. “At length I determined between these two,” he wrote, that Rainbow Falls was “pleasingly beautifull” while the one he saw the day before was “sublimely grand.” These are the turns of phrases that were in use among the Romantic poets and their predecessors to describe aspects of beauty. “Beauty” was used then to refer to the classic Greek and Roman idea of beauty through symmetry, perfection in geometry. “Sublime” had come into fashion among the Romantic poets to refer to the awe-inspiring scenery of the great mountains in the Alps. Lewis was using phraseology that would have been familiar in the aristocratic drawing rooms of England, and in Jefferson’s Monticello mansion, but would be unlikely to be a distinction that would occur to other explorers of the American West in Lewis’s time or for decades after, perhaps not until the great nineteenth century landscape painter, Thomas Moran, reached some of the great scenery of the American West after the Civil War. Moran popularized the awe-inspiring scenery of the American West to the point of probably helping the movement that created American national parks.

Clark arrived at the falls a few days after Lewis, on Monday, June 17, 1805. In contrast to Lewis, Clark remained true to his propensity to report directly and to make quantitative measurements — the first step in the scientific process. “I beheld those Cateracts with astonishment,“ he wrote, “the whole of the water of this great river Confined in a Channel of 280 yards and pitching over a rock of 97 feet 3/4″ and also that the mist extended “for 150 yrds. down & to near the top of the Clifts” so that the “river below is Confined to a narrow Chanel of 93 yards haveing a Small bottom of timber.”

This point kept sticking in my mind as I looked at the tumbling waters coming down from Ryan Dan. For one of the few times in the entire journey, Lewis revealed here, at this very spot, that he knew about art, literature and the culture of Europe and the eastern United States. He stepped out of his role as military captain charged with getting across the Rocky Mountains, to reveal himself briefly as a young man greatly affected by nature’s beauty and educated about the philosophy of aesthetics. Reading his accounts, I found this section of his journals an amazing release and admission of his humanity and personality. His attempt to describe nature’s beauty, and his frustration with that attempt, is as impressive to me as the scene he described.

Soon he would be directing the movement of all the goods on which the expedition depended. In fact the next morning, Friday June 15, 1805, Lewis “set one man about preparing a saffold and collecting wood to dry the meat.” He sent a message back to Clark to start searching for the best location to camp at the base of the falls for the portage around them. A few days later he would have a dangerous encounter with a grizzly bear. A month in the future he would be searching for Indians from whom to buy horses and guide them over the Rocky Mountains, before winter was to set in. The entire expedition was at a crucial juncture. But that was put aside when Lewis looked at the falls. “I hope still to give to the world some faint idea of an object which at this moment fills me with such pleasure and astonishment, and which of it’s kind I will venture to ascert is second to but one in the known world.”

The afternoon sun was hot and the crowd was beginning to thin out as people returned to Great Falls. This was one of the prettiest places we had seen on our travels, modern dam or not, and it was also one of the more obscure, not well marked on maps or in the available tourist material. We lingered a long time on the island while I thought about the entire rationale behind the conservation of nature. There are usually four reasons given for conservation: utilitarian, ecological, aesthetic and moral.

Conservationists usually tend to rely on the first and the second, the utilitarian and the ecological, which are the practical reasons to maintain nature. It is my belief that most people who want to conserve nature, down deep want to do so because of nature’s beauty, and because of the importance of that beauty to them. And here I was standing where Lewis had stood, after he had traveled more than a thousand miles by boat, by horse, and by foot, after he had wintered under the most difficult conditions, in rough huts that he and has men had built, after the death of one of the party, after many other trying experiences. And on this day aesthetics was his preoccupation. I began to realize why this portion of his journals had left such an impression on me. The beauty of nature is a powerful argument, and one with often considerable financial payoff. There was no need to shy away from that reason to want to sustain aspects of our environment.

Chapter 38 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

38. Fort Benton, Montana: Caches, Geology and the Location of Cities

From Great Falls take Route 87 east. Follow 87 past the towns of Carter and Kershaw. Watch for a sign and turn right on Route 80 to reach Fort Benton and the Missouri River. Route 80 continues over the Missouri.

When Lewis and Clark approached the Rocky Mountains, they realized that it would be necessary to leave some of their equipment behind. They had to lighten their load as much as possible to get over the mountains, and there were some things, such as their boats, that they could not bring up the Rockies. They had to cache their heavy equipment, and the location they chose was near the present site of Fort Benton, Montana. Downstream a little way from this town, they dug a large hole, like a house basement. To be on the safe side, they stored some gunpowder and lead, “To guard against accedents,” as they noted in the journals – in case they lost the rest and needed more on their return. They also left two of their “best falling axes, one auger, a set of plains, some files, blacksmiths bellowses and hammers Stake tongs &c. 1 Keg of flour, 2 kegs of parched meal, 2 kegs of Pork, 1 Ke of salt, some chissels, a cooper’s howel, some tin cups, 2 Musquest, 3 brown bear skins, beaver skins, horns of the bighorned animal, a part of the men’s robes clothing and all their superflous baggage of every discription, and beaver traps.” They tied a boat, their red perogue, on a small island in the river and covered it with brush.

The first steamboat to navigate the Missouri, the Independence, moved up her waters on May 28, 1819, only 12 years after Fulton’s steamboat sailed on the Hudson River and only 13 years after Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis. As the Pacific coast opened up and people sought better ways to travel west, steamboats began to take people and materials up the Missouri. In 1846 a town, first called Fort Lewis but renamed in 1850 for Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, was located here and became the terminus of steamboat travel. The town boomed in the California gold rush as people rushed to get to the West Coast, and as cattlemen began to use steamboat transportation for supplies. From here, travelers took the Mullan Wagon Road, 624 miles between Fort Benton and the head of navigation on the Columbia River, and for years it was the fastest route, taking 47 days.

Why did this location become a common place to stop and either cache excess baggage or stop bringing large boats farther? Why did Lewis and Clark not wait until they reached the Great Falls, the truly impassible section of the river, and make a cache just below that? Or why not leave things farther downstream than the area near Fort Benton?

For either the expedition or for steamboats, any location for many miles downstream from Fort Benton would have been difficult. At the site of modern Fort Peck Dam, the Missouri River begins its passage through steep bluffs and cliffs, and these continue to Virgelle. Even if Lewis and Clark had found a place to cache their goods in that section of the river — a place that would have been safe from flooding and where the soil was deep enough — they would have had a difficult time finding a good trail that led down to the river on a gentle slope.

Knowing that the Rocky Mountains could not be too far in the distance, it would be a natural decision for explorers to stop and make a cache as soon as the land began to flatten out again. This is what happens near Fort Benton.

Thus the geology of this location made it a good place to take things to, up the Missouri, but not take things farther. The expedition, as well as later travelers going west, were affected by the geology and the geological history of the Missouri River Basin.

So it is with most major cities. Today, we travel often unaware of these factors. Most major cities around the world are located at crucial locations along rivers. There are three kinds of these locations. The first is the ocean mouth of a river, as with New York City and New Orleans. The second is the junction of two major rivers, as with the site of St. Louis where the Mississippi and Missouri come together, and the site of Omaha, Nebraska, where the Platte River flows into the Missouri. The third is at what is called the “fall line” where a river passes on its way downstream from harder, more erosion-resistant rocks to softer rocks. Waterfalls or unnavigable rapids are the result. The fall line is a natural location to create a city and a natural place for a city to succeed. Not only is the fall line the farthest inland that a steamboat or ship can navigate, but a fall line is also typically far enough upstream to be easily spanned by a wooden bridge, important before the invention of modern steel suspension bridges. And the falls are a good site for water power. Great Falls, Montana is just upstream of the fall line; Fort Benton well situated not far below it.

Usually, the fall line is relatively near the ocean – within a few hundred miles. This is the case with many major cities of the east. In Jefferson’s Virginia, the city of Richmond is on the fall line, as are most of the inland cities of the East Coast and south central plains, from San Antonio to Fort Worth, Texas, Little Rock, Arkansas, Montgomery, Alabama, Columbia, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., Baltimore Maryland, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On the Missouri, the only odd thing is the long distance from the ocean that the fall line occurs, at Great Falls.

The environment of cities and towns, and the reason that cities succeed in a location had long been a curiosity of mine, and I wanted to see this town that was the steamboat terminus on the Missouri. In August, we left Great Falls and drove north on Route 87 to Fort Benton. It had been a wet summer and, as we entered Chouteau County we saw that the bottomlands were flooded in many places. We passed some pretty farms, pretty because there were many trees providing shade and variety on the landscape. About fifteen miles from Great Falls the road reached a crest and from there we viewed a sea of wheat. The wheat was being harvested in strips and we saw long rectangles of golden wheat and brown soil stretching for long distances.

Soon we reached Route 386 where a sign said to take the next right to Fort Benton. We passed through tree-lined streets until we saw a sign announcing the Upper Missouri National Wild and Scenic River, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, 1963. With the building of the railroads, Fort Benton diminished in importance as a transportation terminus and transit point. It has become a pleasant small town – one of the nicest places to view the upper Missouri in Montana.

We turned left to see a park with big cottonwood trees growing on a lawn beside the fast-flowing river. Fort Benton is dominated by a main street that parallels the river. We walked several blocks down and saw a sign for the Grand Union Hotel, which opened to the public on November 1, 1882 a “haven of relaxation” in this “boisterous frontier town at the head of navigation on the Missouri.” At a cost of $200,000 it was “the finest hostelry between Seattle and the twin cities.” Here “steamboats blew for the landings and great cattle herds crossed the Missouri within sight and sound of the guests.” Now Fort Benton is a town that remembers its past and perhaps will grow a little more as tourism becomes a more and more important business in this region. Geology created a location for this hotel, at least for a brief while until railroads came and made fast travel to the coast possible, ending the era of the Missouri steamboats.

Chapter 37 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

37. The Mouth of the Marias River: Which Was the Best Way West?

To the Confluence of the Marias and Missouri Rivers: from Great Falls take Route 87 northeast to Loma (11 miles northeast of Fort Benton). The highway crosses the Marias River at the confluence with the Missouri.

Near the location upstream that Lewis reached in 1805: from Great Falls take Route 87 to Fort Benton, then take state secondary Route 223 north from that city to where it crosses the Marias River.

On June 3, 1805, the expedition was camped at what we know now as the mouth of the Marias River, but which appeared to Lewis and Clark as the junction of two large rivers. The problem was that they weren’t sure which of the rivers was the real Missouri — the river that flowed in from the north, or the one that flowed in from the west. In a certain sense this is arbitrary, because at the confluence of two major waterways, you can call either one the upstream continuation of the main river. But for Lewis and Clark, the question was: Which river would take them the farthest into the mountains and give them the best route over the Rockies to the Columbia? The Indians had told them to search for a river that had some great falls on it. This would lead them to the trails used by the Indians to pass over the mountains. This is the river they would call the real Missouri.

Choosing the wrong river and following it would have serious consequences for the expedition. “To mistake the stream at this period of the season, two months of the traveling season having now elapsed, and to ascend such stream to the Rocky Mountains or perhaps much further before we could inform ourselves whether it did approach the Columbia or not, and then be obliged to return and take the other stream would not only lose us the whole of this season but would probably so dishearten the party that it might defeat the expedition altogether,” Lewis wrote.

Although the future of the expedition depended on the right choice, even perhaps their lives, Lewis took a detached, almost scientific approach, as if he were a modern scientist sitting in a comfortable laboratory office, rather than at a rough camp in bad weather. He pursued the problem with a seeming academic curiosity, writing. “An interesting question was now to be determined: which of these rivers was the Missouri.”

In a sense, the expedition was lost and needed directions. We are all familiar with this problem. Perhaps you are lost at this very moment that you read this section of my book, trying to follow the directions at the top of this section. But the trouble was, in Lewis’s time, there wasn’t anybody handy to give them directions. Today you can stop at a gas station, use your car phone if you have one, or even rely on a GPS device that is in some automobiles, to give you directions.

The problem the expedition faced was one of their own uncertainty. The rivers were set in their directions and were not about to move at random over the next few days.

And so Lewis proposed an experiment: “To this end an investigation of both streams was the first thing to be done.” He recognized the need to measure things about the river, making observations quantitative, to “learn their widths, depths, comparative rapidity . . . and thence the comparative bodies of water furnished by each,” and by these means attempt to infer which was the main stream.

Like a modern scientific team, the camp divided into two groups, each examining the available evidence and each proposing what we would refer to today as an hypothesis. Most of the men believed the north fork was the main river and therefore the one to follow. Lewis reviewed the evidence on their side: The north fork was deeper but not as swift. However, its waters ran “in the same boiling and rolling manner which has uniformly characterized the Missouri throughout its whole course.” The waters were brown, thick, and turbid – the big muddy, so it seemed. The bed of the river was also mainly mud, so that the “air and character of this river” seemed “precisely that of the Missouri below.” For these reasons, most of those on the expedition were convinced that the north fork was the Missouri. On the other side were Lewis and Clark who, Lewis wrote, were “not quite so precipitate.”

They decided to explore both forks, what scientists would call testing the two hypotheses. The next morning Clark led a group up the left fork, while Lewis took a group on the right. The rest of the expedition remained at the base camp where the two forks joined. Lewis traveled up the north fork from June 4th to the 6th. He found that this fork continued northward toward what is now the border between Montana and Alberta, Canada, and he became convinced that this direction was too far to the north to be the route to the Pacific.

After taking time to attempt a reading of the latitude and longitude (which failed because of cloudy weather) he began his return on June 7th to the junction of the two forks to rejoin the main body of the expedition. Lewis was correct; the north fork was a small tributary that they named the Marias River (actually Maria’s River, in honor of Lewis’s cousin, Miss Maria Wood, but after a while, people dropped the apostrophe).

By waiting a few extra days on the Marias River to try to take measurements to determine his latitude and longitude, he was trying to reduce the uncertainty about the position of the expedition. But a change in the weather, something he could not make accurate predictions about, prevented him from making the measurements.

In deciding which was the right river, Lewis and Clark were confronted simply with a lack of information. They were uncertain about what to do and wanted to avoid making a crucial error. The error they faced at the junction of the two rivers was what scientists call an error of uncertainty of the first kind – a problem about the facts of a situation that already exists, or, given present conditions, must occur. One of the channels was the main river – a fact that was not going to change during the time of the expedition. There was only one correct river to take. There was something direct and simple to do to resolve this uncertainty – explore the two rivers and determine by direct observation which was the correct one.

There is another kind of quality about nature that leads to a lack of certainty about what we can do. Lewis experienced this kind on his way back to the confluence of the Marias and Missouri River. This is the problem that we know that certain kinds of events can happen, but we don’t know when. This is an uncertainty of the second kind – uncertainty of the occurrence of some event that has some probability of happening, but whose occurrence involves inherent uncertainty.

I call this is the Las Vegas uncertainty: Will you place a bet on dice that haven’t been rolled yet? Unlike the first kind of uncertainty, the second kind is not resolved so directly and simply. You can’t pick up your car phone, call the weather bureau and ask to know with complete certainty whether a thunderstorm will strike Loma exactly where the two rivers come together. The best a weatherman can do is give you the odds on whether or not it will happen. We cannot reduce the uncertainty of this kind of future event by studying it. This is the problem with the flooding on the Missouri River. It is an uncertainty of the second kind that leads us to build levees and dams.

We can, however, learn what the odds – or at least get an estimate of the odds – and decide if we want to accept those odds. We know, because people have rolled dice for a long time, and also because of mathematical analyzes of probabilities, what the chances are of any number coming up with a legitimate pair of dice, and we know that the number seven is most likely. But we can’t find a route to always getting the number seven, the same way we can take Route 87 to Loma.

Traveling on Route 87, the countryside appeared similar to the badlands that Lewis and Clark described along the Missouri breaks, near to where we were driving. Another historic marker told us that we had reached Marias River, “The Lewis and Clark expedition camped at the mouth of this river just east of here, June 3, 1805.” A land of good directions, maps, and apparent certainty.

But Lewis and Clark saw it very differently. Pushing up the river in a slow-moving boat against a six-mile-an-hour current, sleeping on its banks, studying the land through which it flowed, Lewis and Clark saw a Las Vegas style river. Perhaps our problem with this kind of error in our knowledge is a matter of relative time scales. Lewis and Clark spent more than a year on the Missouri, a time as long or longer than some of the variations of the river. In this day of satellite and aircraft observations, of automobile travel, and vacations that are quick stops here and there, our time of observation is much shorter. Most of us have just one shot to see the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark. If it is flooded, well, we may lose that chance. If it’s a dry year, we will remember the river as it looked that year and it will be fixed in our imagination as if it were always and forever that way.

On Lewis’s return, following the Marias River downstream, it began to rain, and the peculiar clay soil of the floodplain turned into a slippery mess, difficult to traverse. After a “most disagreeable and restless night” camped in the rain, Lewis and his small band set off down river to join the rest of the expedition. The clay soil prevented the rain from soaking through and became so slippery that it was like “walking over frozen ground which is thawed to small depth.” We know today that they were walking on a clay derived from glacial till and shale, commonly called gumbo, a clay that turns into a plastic and sticky material when wet.

Lewis slipped on this soil while walking on a bluff above the river, but managed to save himself from falling 90 feet to the water. Just after he had saved himself, he heard one of his men, Windsor, cry out “God, Captain, what shall I do?” Lewis saw that Windsor had slipped on the clay and slid so that his right arm and leg hung over the bluff and he was holding on to the edge with his left arm and leg. “I expected every instant to see him lose his strength and slip off,” Lewis wrote, but “I disguised my feelings and spoke very calmly to him and assured him that he was in no kind of danger.” Lewis then astutely told Windsor to take his knife out of his belt with the hand that was hanging over the precipice, and dig a hole in the bank for his right foot, and by such effort work his way up, which Windsor did, and in that way he was saved.

Searching for the right fork is an inherently different problem from trying to avoid slipping on wet clay and falling into a river. The second kind of uncertainties are referred to today as problems of risk, because the event has not yet happened and its occurrence has to do with inherent chance, or with processes whose causes, for all practical purposes, we cannot distinguish from true chance events. Translated into human events, risk becomes a matter of prediction, forecasting, luck, and fortune, the latter two of which were also constant companions of the expedition.

Our modern environmental problems confront us with both kinds of uncertainty. And it’s important that we understand which kind we are facing. The floods on the Missouri in the 1990s showed us that we cannot treat uncertainties of the Las Vegas kind as if they were uncertainties of route directions. We do not seem to have trouble accepting the idea of our own errors – that we might not know which river to take. But we have a great difficulty understanding and accepting the second kind of uncertainty – that there may be some inherent chance in nature.

On the level plain we passed fields of hay and wheat, and we saw mountains along the horizon. About 46 miles from Great Falls, we passed over a bridge where we saw the Marias River. Here the river appears as a small meandering current in a floodplain of cottonwoods. I think about the irony of what geographers say today: If Lewis and Clark had followed Marias River, they would have found a better pass through the mountains, one eventually used by the railroad and crosses the divide in Wyoming, that would have taken them more easily to the Columbia River.

If you have the time to take a canoe trip through the wild and scenic portion of the Missouri, you may have a chance to experience the river at the Lewis and Clark time scale. When a friend of mine did this during a five-day trip, he got caught in an intense thunderstorm, and experienced the second kind of uncertainty directly. Another friend canoed the region slightly upriver from Loma, and he was caught in a strong easterly wind, a headwind, so he and his companion had to canoe hard against that wind in spite of the fact that the river was flowing with them.

The Missouri’s refusal to stay put and stay constant has been the source of many a good story and pithy saying, but this quality has also interfered with our society, with commerce, and with our conservation of nature. Most of our past methods to conserve and manage environmental factors assume the constancy of nature – except for human intervention. But the reality is the other way around. We try to fix a natural varying environment, believing that our interventions are the causes of variations in an otherwise static structure of environment. Like the fickle Missouri, all of nature changes at many scales of time and space. We have longed for and tried to create an environment that is fixed, like the channelized Missouri downstream. Having lost our heritage about the river and the prairie, we seem to have ignored its important message.

Chapter 36 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

36. Judith Landing: How Early People May Have Affected Wildlife

To the mouth of the Judith River and Judith Land Recreation Area: From Great Falls take 87 northeast past Ft. Benton to Big Sandy. Take route 236 right (southeast) to the mouth of the Judith Landing Recreation Area. This road crosses the Missouri River to the mouth of the Judith River.

On May 29, 1805, the expedition reached the mouth of the Judith River where that river enters the Missouri in Montana. Clark named the river for Judith Hancock of Fincastle, Virginia, whom he would marry in 1808. On that day, Lewis wrote that near to this junction they passed the “remains of a vast many mangled carcases of Buffalow.” He attributed these carcases to hunting by Indians who drove the animals over the cliffs, and records in considerable detail the methods by which this kind of hunting was done.

Clark makes a simpler note, mentioning that he walked on the shore and “saw the remains of a number of buffalow, which had been drove down a Clift of rocks.” He does not go further in attributing the cause of these deaths. This method of killing buffalo was one of the few available to peoples without guns and horses, and was a well-known practice among the plains Indians. Lewis notes that “in this manner the Indians of the Missouri distroy vast herds of buffaloe at a stroke.” However, experts familiar with the method and the area near the Judith River, suggest that the “broken country back of this bluff is not really suitable for concentrating and stampeding buffalo” and therefore the large number of dead buffalo, which Clark estimated to be about 100, was more likely due to drowning during spring thaw and flood — due to changes in weather, rather than human impact.

This incident epitomizes a question that has intrigued naturalists, ecologists, and anthropologists for decades: What was the relative impact of the Indians on buffalo compared to the effects of natural environmental change? In the nineteenth century, the famous British biologist, Alfred Wallace, wrote that an examination of the fossil record since the end of the ice age suggested that the “biggest and hugest and fiercest” animals had died off, such as the saber toothed tiger and the hairy mammoth. Some speculate that the changing climate at the end of the ice age was the cause. But these extinctions occurred around the time that the Indians were migrating to North America from Asia. Paul Martin, an American anthropologist, suggested instead that perhaps these extinctions were due to hunting by the newly immigrating Indians. They would have been an introduced predator whose methods would have been unfamiliar to the native animals, and therefore there may have been little fear of human beings. Martin suggested that a densely populated, moving wave of peoples coming down from the north could have used just this kind of method to kill vast numbers of the big animals, and lead to their extinction. The matter, like the cause of the death of the buffalo that Lewis and Clark found near the Judith River, remains unresolved.

In his journal for that day, Lewis described this method of hunting buffalo. “One of the most active and fleet young men is selected and disguised in a robe of buffaloe skin,” he wrote. This man then positions himself near the herd and the precipice. “The other Indians now surround the herd on the back and flanks and at a signal agreed on all shew themselves at the same time moving forward towards the buffaloe.” This causes the animals to stampede. Then the man disguised in the buffalo skin reveals himself to the animals and runs in front of them to get them to stampede toward the precipice. Blinded by fear, the buffalo keep going and fall over the cliff. Meanwhile, this man has to be careful not to be run over by the buffalo. “If they are not very fleet runers the buffaloe tread them under foot and crush them to death, and sometimes drive them over the precepice also,” Lewis wrote.

Could the Indians have caused the extinction of such huge animals as the mammoth and the Saber toothed tiger with this method, along with killing individuals here and there with bows and arrows? There is no doubt that the Indians had large effects on the native animals, including buffalo. But it is my guess that the biggest impact was through alteration of the habitat — in the case of the plains Indians, the frequent setting of fires, which would have improved the habitat for grass-eating grazers like buffalo, and made it poorer for woodland feeding animals. We know today that it is generally much harder to cause the complete extinction of a species by hunting down and killing all of the individuals. Such hunting can greatly reduce the numbers of a species, but it is very hard to get the very last animal – especially if the tools available are stone arrow points and wooden bows and arrows, and the method of transportation is the human foot.

A much easier way to alter the abundance of an animal is to affect its habitat. Most of the extinctions that modern technological civilization has brought about have occurred through habitat change, including physical alteration of the habitat and the introduction of exotic predators, competitors, and parasites.

At the time of Lewis and Clark, the number of buffalo on the plains was immense. Estimates, based on the density of herds and the area a herd covered, suggest that there could have been 60 million of these animals in 1804.

With the coming of European technology and the introduction of the horse, and then with the invention of the train and telegraph, the potential to kill off the buffalo through hunting increased greatly and almost succeeded. But this required a major intentional effort to destroy the buffalo in order to eliminate the primary food source of the Indians, as well as a major American and European market for buffalo hides. The economic pressures to hunt buffalo and the intentional destruction of the herds by the military almost succeeded in causing the extinction of this species. It might have, except for the work of a very few people who, seeing the demise of the great herds, began to collect small numbers of these animals and conserve them. Ironically, Buffalo Bill was one of these, as were some Native Americans.

Elsewhere, with other species native to North America, hunting often came close to causing extinctions but did not. Typically, when a species is reduced to a very small number it is both hard to find and no longer valuable as a commodity, so the chase is abandoned. This happened with the bowhead whale, hunted from 1840 to 1920 by Yankee whalers out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Often the hunters, no longer able to find the few that remain, believe that the species is extinct while in fact a few pockets of the animals remain. This was the case with the sea otter and elephant seal, also hunted in the nineteenth century.

Our relative effect on the environment and its animals and plants is a major question for today as well as yesterday. The challenge is to sustain these wild living resources in the face of much smaller habitats and much greater human population pressures.

When you visit the confluence of the Missouri and the Judith River, take some time to look around the countryside and see if you think it might be possible to ambush a herd of buffalo and drive them over the cliffs, or whether the topography of the river might be one that would drown the animals during spring ice breakup and floods.

Chapter 35 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

by Daniel B. Botkin, originally published by Perigee Books, a division of Penguin/Putnam, 1999.

- Daniel B. Botkin

All of the chapters published thus far can be found in the Passage of Discovery category. Please note that they are listed in reverse order of date posted.

More books by Daniel Botkin are available for purchase from the Center For the Study Of the Environment bookstore.

35. Fort Peck Dam and the Pines Recreation Area: Grizzlies and the Conservation of Endangered Species

To Fort Peck Dam: From the north take Route 2 to Nashua, then Route 117 south to Route 24, which goes along the reservoir, Fort Peck Lake. Then turn left to the dam. From the south take Route 200 to Route 24; take Route 24 north to the dam.

To the Pines Recreation Area: from Fort Peck take Route 24 west to Maxness Road, then go about four miles west to Willow Creek Road. Take this road west to the Pines Road. Go south on the Pines Road to the recreation area, at the end of the road on the reservoir.

On May 11, 1805, when the expedition was northeast of what is now the Pine Recreation Area near Fort Peck Dam in eastern Montana, Bratton, one of the members of the expedition, went for a walk along the shore. Soon after, he rushed up to Lewis “so much out of breath that it was several minutes before he could tell what had happened.” Bratton had met and shot a grizzly bear, he told Lewis, but the bear didn’t fall; instead it ran about half a mile and was still alive.

Lewis took seven men and trailed the bear about a mile by following its blood in the shrubs and willows near the shore. Finding it, they killed the bear with two shots through the skull. Upon cutting it open, they found that Bratton had shot the bear in the lungs, after which the bear had chased him a mile and a half.

“These bear being so hard to die rather intimidates us all,” Lewis wrote. “The wonderful power of life which these animals possess,” the journals continued, “renders them dreadful; their very track in the mud or sand, which we have sometimes found 11 inches long and 7 1/4 wide, exclusive of the talons, is alarming.”

Not far from this location, Lewis wrote the first scientific description of the grizzly, although it did not receive its scientific name, Ursus horribilis, until 1815. Lewis described a male “not fully grown” that he estimated weighed 300 pounds, which they had killed after shooting it many times. He wrote that the grizzly had longer legs than the black, that its color was “yellowish brown, the eyes small, black, and piercing; the front of the fore legs near the feet is usually black; the fur is finer thicker and deeper than that of the black bear.”

Their first encounter with a grizzly had taken place the previous fall, on October 20, 1804, when they were near Bismarck, North Dakota and about to set up their winter camp. That location, in the great plains hundreds of miles east of the Rocky Mountains, considerably extends the eastern range assumed for this animal.

Lewis and Clark saw grizzlies during the next spring and into the summer. There were approximately 20 days between April 17 and the end of July that they saw these bears — about one encounter or sighting every five days. They were especially troubled by them when they were portaging their equipment around the Great Falls. Their last sighting was near Three Forks, Montana, the headwaters of the Missouri. No grizzlies were found east of Pierre, South Dakota, nor west of a north-south line passing through Missoula, Montana; the grizzlies were confined to two regions of the trip – the upper Missouri and adjacent short grass prairies and the Rocky Mountain forests – the dry plains and the cold mountains.

Because grizzlies are so big and dangerous, Lewis and Clark recorded the number of bears (usually one) in each encounter. Reading their accounts, I realized that it was possible to use the journals to estimate the original abundance of these dangerous animals and to learn about their original range. The expedition encountered a total of 37 grizzlies over a distance of approximately 1,000 miles, or average about four grizzlies per 100 miles traveled. The area known to have grizzlies today, 20,000 square miles, is 6 percent of the presettlement range of the bear, based on the journals of Lewis and Clark. Today, grizzly habitat occurs mainly on government land, mostly U.S. Forest Service land, in four states. Only 5 percent is private land. Much of the rest is in four national parks: Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and North Cascades. Habitat in and around Yellowstone National Park that appears to have grizzlies at present is about 7,800 square miles. You are very unlikely to see a grizzly. But you can, at the Pines Recreation Area and elsewhere, see grizzly bear habitat. The rare encounter with a grizzly today would occur if you go cross country backpacking in one of the national parks or national forests. You are more likely to see them in the Canadian Rockies, although there too the chances are low, or in Alaska where the chances are greater.

Why would anyone want to know how many grizzlies there were? Grizzlies are listed as an endangered species, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a recovery plan for the grizzly bear. But recovery to what? Under present interpretation of the Endangered Species Act, a species can be listed as threatened or endangered if its numbers drop to less than one-half of the estimated “carrying-capacity” – the maximum number of animals that a habitat can support. And the carrying capacity is typically taken to be the estimate of pre-settlement abundance. That number can be estimated from the Lewis and Clark journals.

Assuming on average that the men of the expedition could see about a half mile on each side of the river, then the density of the bears was about 4 for every 100 square miles. Multiplying this by the assumed presettlement range of the bears, about 530,000 square miles, suggests that there might have been as many as 20,000.

Although it is legally required to restore the grizzlies and an estimate of the presettlement abundance is the usual method, I was surprised to find that there are few other studies that provided any useful estimate of this abundance. One of these few was by the Craighead brothers, who have been two of America’s experts on grizzly bears. Their study was limited to Yellowstone National Park, where they reported an average of 230 grizzlies between 1959 and 1967, which works out to an average density of 3 bears per 100 square miles in Yellowstone National Park, similar to my estimate from the Lewis and Clark journals.

Strangely, with the sole exception of information gathered in Yellowstone National Park, our present knowledge about the abundance and density of grizzlies is not much better than what someone could have surmised by a careful reading of Lewis and Clark’s journals when the expedition returned to St. Louis in 1806.

If this is what we know about one of the most famous, most readily reported, legally threatened and therefore protected species, whose abundance and whereabouts are of considerable interest to outdoorsmen as well as government agencies, what could be our knowledge of other species? The answer is, in most cases, much worse.

But is a goal of restoring the abundance of an endangered species to a single presettlement number the right thing to do? To do so is to believe in the constancy of nature – that before the influence of European civilization, the abundance of grizzlies and everything else in nature never changed from year to year. This doesn’t make much practical sense and all the evidence available about wildlife suggests that this has never been true; populations of wildlife change all the time. Such a belief, while consistent with the ancient idea of a perfect balance of nature, contradicts the inherent changeableness of the environment, which Lewis and Clark came to know all too well in their travels on the Missouri.

Scientists now know that populations of grizzlies and other animals and plants are, like the Missouri River, always changing. There is no single “natural” abundance. There is a range of abundances, all of which are “natural” in the sense that the population was at each level within the range at some time during the past, prior to effects of modern civilization. This has become known as the “historic range of variation.”

When we recognize this, then a plan to return the grizzlies to their original “abundance” becomes more complicated. We begin to wonder not what was the right number, but what was the key to persistence.

Some more recent programs to restore endangered or threatened animals have begun to focus on this more realistic goal of a self-sustaining population. Apparently, this was the goal for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Grizzly Recovery Plan. Its objective was “to establish viable, self-sustaining populations in areas where the grizzly bear occurred in 1975.” To accomplish the Fish and Wildlife’s recovery plan for the grizzly bear, we must understand much more about the requirements of this species than a single number. We must understand what it needs from its habitat and the ecosystems within which it lives. We have to obtain estimates of the abundances of the bears before and after settlement by Europeans, and, if possible, obtain estimates at different times so we can calculate the range of variation.

To believe that there is a single magic number which is the only sustainable one is to believe that a species is fragile and that individuals within a population are not resourceful. This seemed hardly the case with the grizzlies that met Lewis and Clark. The grizzlies were fearless, strong, able to withstand a number of bullet wounds; they seemed quick to respond, resourceful. A population that persists and prevails over a long time must have abilities to respond to change. We understand now that to be sustainable is different than to continue to exist at a single abundance; and that to exist at a single abundance may not be the best strategy for a species to persist.

On June 28, 1805, the expedition was camped and in the midst of portaging around the Great Falls of Montana. Lewis noted in his journal that “The white bears have now become so troublesome to us that I do not think it prudent to send one man alone on an errand of any kind, particularly where he has to pass through the brush.” The bears were bold enough to “come close around our camp every night, but have never yet ventured to attack us and our dog gives us timely notice of their visits, he keeps constantly patrolling all night.” It was so dangerous, Lewis believed, that “I have made the men sleep with their arms by them.” Reading this and the other accounts of the expedition’s experiences with grizzlies, I was at first caught up in the excitement, and danger that the bears posed, and in the bravery with which the men responded. Lewis and Clark’s encounters with grizzly bears were their most dangerous encounters with any animal and among the most dangerous of all their experiences. But the meaning of these encounters to us in our search of nature is much greater, much deeper.

From their encounters with the grizzlies, we learn much. We learn about the limits of our present knowledge. We learn that, in spite of much emotion and desire directed toward the conservation of rare and endangered animals during the last 30 years, our knowledge remains terribly limited. We discover that we know little more about the range and density of the grizzly bears in the lower 48 states than one would have known from reading Lewis and Clark’s journals in the early nineteenth century. We discover that clear, objective, written historical records can be a great help to us. And in the end, we discover that we have a much longer journey ahead of us than Lewis and Clark if we are to be able to predict the results of our attempts to conserve endangered species.

Daniel B. Botkin

Reflections of a renegade naturalist

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Additional Locations to Visit – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

Additional Locations to Visit

Afterward by Robert Redford – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

Afterward

Chapter 42 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

42. Three Forks, Montana: Headwaters of the Missouri River

Chapter 41 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

41. Gates of the Mountains: Continents Collide and We Are Rafted Along in Their Wake

Chapter 40 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

40. Giant Springs and Great Falls: Huge Quantities of Fresh Water Rise and Descend as Hail and Rain

Chapter 39 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

39. Ryan Dam: Scenery and Electricity

Chapter 38 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

38. Fort Benton, Montana: Caches, Geology and the Location of Cities

Chapter 37 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

37. The Mouth of the Marias River: Which Was the Best Way West?

Chapter 36 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

36. Judith Landing: How Early People May Have Affected Wildlife

Chapter 35 – Passage of Discovery: An Ecologist’s Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark

35. Fort Peck Dam and the Pines Recreation Area: Grizzlies and the Conservation of Endangered Species