The Missouri River is an ideal location for a "Floating Classroom" educational experience. However remember that floating down the river per se is not education. Experience is not education. The trick to turning a wonderful experience into an educational enterprise is the outside reading you require, the discussions you facilitate, and the follow-up project selected. These transform experience into education.

Each year Tom Nielson leads a "Floating Classroom" program out of Northern Montana College using a raft and pull-along boat. Groups can make the learning experience in canoes or rafts, with or without land support. While the Lewis and Clark journeys might be the primary focus of such trips, much wider subject areas are also relevant, for a trek down the Missouri is like making an archeological trench across an ancient tell. It turns up information on geology, biology, sociology, paleontology, along with the historical findings related to Westward expansion, the land rush and the immigrant’s, native American issues, and, of course, the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Most trekkers underestimate the number, size and danger of the lakes. Be prepared to negotiate a surf of two feet or more and plan in your supplying to automatically figure in several days of being "wind bound." The lakes are often more remote than the river sections, so count of being away from people, phones and supplies several days or more at a time.

The river sections (about two thirds of the trip) will likely be your favorite segments, especially the Wild and Scenic" river sections. The Missouri is a swift river and helps you get down it. (Unless, of course, you are going upstream, which then changes the sentence to "The Missouri fights your progress with a swift current which will some days seem insurmountable." )

In Montana and the Dakotas you can camp just about anywhere, including at the landing sites. If you are near a ranch house you should ask, but much of the open range is far from the house and appears to be unsettled. As you move past the ranches into the farm land of Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri open shoreline campsites are harder to find, especially if the river is flooding. The tops of the levees often offer the only adequate open spots. However, in the lower river there are far more public and private campgrounds, so the number of sites is actually not diminished. While "fishing cabins" are almost non-existent in the upper river, there are many in the lower river offering "yards" for a tent site. If asked, few fishermen will turn you down.

If you decide to use a motor or "kicker" to help you down the river, be prepared to burn up the water pump by the constant pumping of the silt-filled water. While this is exacerbated below Sioux City where there are no dams to settle out the silt and sand, it is then multiplied again during flood conditions, which are common on the lower Missouri in July. If you are not comfortable with replacing your own water pump, be ready to arrange for its replacement somewhere in the lower Missouri.

Canoe Trekking is generally considered to be a journey of 500 or more miles. Using that criterion there are several great partial treks on the Missouri:

1. Montana More than 700 miles of river starting at Three Forks and winding through wild and scenic river sections, cliffs, fast flowing clear water, numerous dams, the Great Falls, and through several lakes to the confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri at the north Dakota border. A delightful 700+ mile trek which would be my own first choice to repeat.

The lower 735 miles of channeled river where you travel with the barge traffic on fast flowing current with frequent towns marinas and historical spots to stop and visit and no dams to portage. An easy trip for motored travel.

3. The Dakotas

While there are river sections in this thousand mile middle section, it is primarily made up of narrow lakes and would be ideal for lake trekking, especially with a sea-worthy boat.

The new DeLorme software might provide the best help, though there are several other map sources you might want to add:

1. The Upper Missouri Wild and Scenic River maps set. (Map 1&2 together and map 3&4 together on waterproof Tyvek) Available from Bureau of Land Management, Lewistown District, Airport Road, Lewistown Montana, 59457

2. Missouri River Navigation Charts. There are two sets of navigation charts produced for barges by the U S Army Corps of Engineers: Sioux City to Kansas City, and Kansas City to the mouth. Each includes more than 70 sequential color charts of every detail imaginable which might be important to barge traffic. That, however is the hitch. They are for barges, and are not very trekker-friendly (though they are increasingly under pressure to make them so, and have recently included more campsite and marina information). These chart sets are available from either of the district offices:

US Army Corps of Engineers

District Office

215 North 17th Street

Omaha, Nebraska 68102-4978

OR

US Army Corps of Engineers

District Office

700 Federal Building

Kansas City MO 64106-2896

While you may purchase these before entering the lower river, consider that the charts are so detailed that you will have to switch to the next chart every ten or twenty minutes if the current is running fast. Since they are so detailed as to be almost unusable (especially in the rain) consider not making the purchase, and stopping at one of the Corps on-river offices where you can often get them for free by asking the field officer.

If you are canoeing the entire river, contact the Omaha office and also ask for the following free Corps recreational maps. Though they are inadequate for navigation, they do supply important campground, access and marina details.

- Ft. Peck Lake (Ft. Peck Dam)

- Lake Sakakawea (Garrison Dam)

- Lake Oahe (Oahe Dam)

- Lake Sharpe (Big Bend Dam)

- Lake Francis Case (Ft. Randall Dam)

- Lewis & Clark Lake ( Gavins Pt. Dam)

The Missouri is a fast-flowing river. The Corps of Engineers used to have a sign at the mouth warning boaters that the river was unsuitable for recreational boating and full of snares, wing dams and dangerous currents. The message: stay away, this river is reserved for barges. The most common pleasure boat guidebook did not even list the lower Missouri for years. However boaters have learned to negotiate these more difficult currents. It is true that the Missouri has a fast-flowing current. The average fall of the Missouri River is twelve times greater than the Mississippi. So this river seems in a hurry to tumble down to the sea. In July when the major snow melt hits river it is commonly at flood stage and may run at five to seven miles per hour.

However, don’t imagine you will be able to simply sit on the river and float 60 miles in ten hours. The channel current wanders all across the river bed leaving much of the river floating at less than a mile an hour, and sometimes running backwards up the inbanks. Even floating the current will take full time work to stay in the current.

Sooner or later you'll have to hitch into town, unless you want to combine canoe trekking with hiking. The tips for hitching are simple:

1. Use a sign. A simple all-purpose sign says "To Town" on one side and "To River" on the other. If you are going longer distances, the specific name of the town is even better. When desperate simple write "please?" on one side...

2. Carry something in your hands. Not a full pack (if you can help it) but at least something recognizable (a small cooler is ideal, as is a gas can).

3. Take off your hat and sunglasses, they pick up your face, remember.

4. Open up your jacket if you have one... appear open.

5. For pickup trucks use your finger in a curling gesture indicating that you are willing to ride in the back. (this willingness often gets you up front anyway.)

6. Two get rides easier than one. Take a friend.

8. Pick a good place. Either a startup spot or a place where there is plenty of pull-off room.

9. Don't be afraid to ask. If you are at a gas station or parking lot, simply ask. People often will help another person out if they are asked point blank.

10. Don't expect rides with women alone. Once I see a woman driving, I simply smile and wave, dropping my thumb and sign. (which ironically sometimes gets me a ride with the woman anyway -- mostly grandmotherly type women.)

You can portage all 14 if you want to, but giving people a chance to help provides them with the opportunity to share in your trip and they always go away feeling good about their service -- it is a win-win situation. The tips:

1. Ask. Wait for a fisherman or somebody with a pickup and simply ask them.

2. Let them off the hook. Don't be insistent -- just offer them the chance to serve. If they refuse, say, "no problem.. I'll find somebody." (On my entire trek I only had one outright refusal.. a fellow about 45, beautifully tanned, with a gold chain around his neck and gold link bracelet on his wrist -- and a blonde about 30 waiting on his boat which he'd already launched... I shoulda' known better than to have even asked!)

3. Use the word "help." As in, "Would you HELP me by taking me around the dam before you park?"

4. Tell them what you're doing. After a short pause say, "I'm canoeing to St. Louis" (or where ever).

5. Then shut up. Don't over sell. Let them make up their mind.

6. Follow the hitching rules for dress (take off hat & sunglasses, open jacket).

7. As a last resort (if they him and haw) offer to pay. But be careful doing this -- most people (especially on vacation) would rather help a stranger than get paid.

8. Thank them profusely as soon as you are in

the truck.

9. En route tell them about your trip. Don't worry, they'll interview you.

10. Thank them again when you are arriving at the put-in site.

11. Get their name and address once you get to the put-in site. Ask, "Can I send you a card letting you know when I finish - you sure helped me along."

12. Write a postcard to them the next day thanking them again.

13. Send them another postcard before you finish. This allows them to vicariously participate in your trek. You will discover that more than half of the men who carry you around the dams have dreamed of doing some sort of trek like you are doing. Few ever will actually do it. Your contact with them allows them to live through your trek, and it is the least service you can give back to them Some of these helpers will post every one of your cards above their workbench, leaving them there for years to come.

14. When finished send a final note or gift. If you've kept a journal and type it up, send them a signed copy. Other trekkers get a slew of pictures made and sign them, sending them to all their helpers. Still others go back through their notes the following Christmas and send a picture-card once again thanking their helpers. Remember... there are other trekkers coming along behind you. Make every person who helps you glad they did.