Crossing the Missouri River

Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois quickly fell through the rearview mirror of our car yesterday.

Hard rains struck near Columbus.  Well-tended farmer’s fields expanded and began to displace leafy trees in Indiana.  Green rows of corn marched against us in Illinois.  Thick traffic slowed us on the St Louis bypass.

As we crossed the muddy and rolling Missouri River, I said to that girl, “Think about that river.  It starts at your sister’s back door in Montana.  That’s something.”

That girl’s sister often takes her morning walks at the Missouri Headwaters near Three Forks, Montana; where the Gallatin River, the Jefferson River, and the Madison River twine together forming the Missouri among cottonwood trees and mountain backdrops.

Consider.  The Missouri River is the longest river in North America.  From the point where it merges with the Mississippi near St. Louis to its headwaters in Montana, the river twines through some 2341 miles varied, often rugged terrain.

Exploring the West by way of this river, The Lewis and Clark expedition departed from St Louis on May 14, 1804.  The expedition—pushing up the river itself—did not even reach the present day state of Montana until April 27, 1805.  This, after overwintering with Mandan Indians along the river in what is now present day North Dakota.  Some 2341 miles upriver, on July 17, 1805, the Corps of Discovery finally camped at the Headwaters of the Missouri.

I have crossed the Missouri River—quite literally—hundreds of times in Montana.  My “lake front” is actually the waters of the Missouri River having been backed up into the Prickly Pear Creek drainage by Hauser Dam a few miles downstream.

By land, I have crossed the river outside Montana less than a dozen times.

--Mitchell Hegman