I went on this trek interested primarily in the Lewis and Clark exploration. I returned primarily interested in the Missouri River.

Ultimately any river trek -- especially so on a mighty river like the Missouri -- changes the subject to itself. The Missouri itself quickly becomes your dominant interest as one uncovers the layers of history the "archeologist's trench" reveals as you float down stream.

The Missouri is a mighty river, much more masculine than the Mississippi, running faster and far less tamed than it’s sister. The old story of the Missouri riverboat pilot who had gone blind reflects the attitude. His cheerful response to losing his sight: "Well, I can always go pilot on the Mississippi."

Formerly a Northward flowing river, emptying into the Hudson Bay or Great Lakes basin, the last ice age dammed up its escape route and forced the river southward to join the Mississippi.

For years it was considered unnavigable. As Stanley Vestal puts it, "Too swift for oars, too deep for poles, too crooked for sails, too shallow for keels, and too bank-less for towing."

It possesses a voracious appetite, gobbling up boats (450 steamboats alone wrecked here) river banks, cornfields, mighty cottonwood trees, and ranch houses for afternoon snacks. Each year it gorges itself on ten thousand acres of farmland, a few miles of railroad, and a couple hundred houses. It will swallow you too, if you are not careful.

It is a totally unpredictable, untamed, wild river in spite of the efforts to tame it with channels, wing dikes and levees and dams.

Never content with its bed, the Missouri puts it channel down where ever it wants to. The riverboat captains used to say, "She switches beds faster than any harlot." Some "River fort" sites are now ten miles away from the modern channel.

The story told most on the river illustrating its wandering path is of the Keane Saloon on Cow Island, which was on the Kansas side of the channel and thus legal to sell booze. However, in 1881 the river switched channels and put Keane’s saloon in dry Missouri and he was promptly arrested for selling liquor. The "main channel" was then the dividing line between the two states (this case went all the way to the supreme court which made a fascinating decision differentiating between abrupt changes of the river course and gradual changes).

And the Missouri is ruthless and unforgiving. Want a gentile tamed river to float? Try the Mississippi. Want a wild roller-coaster ride down a river jammed with snags, logs floating along like torpedoes, "Sawyers" hiding under the current which bob up only once every few minutes which will lift any boat above right out of the water and dump out the contents. Or volcanic "boils," whirlpools, back currents, and quicksand? Canoe the Missouri..

And all this just describes the river section. Where the Army Corps of Engineers has tried to tame the Missouri with dams, the River simply collects all the wind available on the prairie and serves up a regular diet of rollers and breakers high enough to make you reconsider the whole idea of canoeing this River’s route.

Then there is the natural history, and the historical-sociological influence of the river. It is a dividing line almost everywhere it flows, dividing time zones, cultures, and ways of living. On the north-south section you will find on the east side farms and farmers, and on the west ranches and ranchers. The people call each other west river folk, and east river people. For years the Missouri is "where the West begins."

Almost every emigrant heading west on the Oregon or California trail started their trip off with a boat trip up the Missouri. And we all know of the Lewis and Clark journey establishing the limits of the "Louisiana purchase."

Four state capitals are located on its banks, and for almost a hundred years it was the primary highway of the biggest business in North America: the fur trade.

While it no longer is a primary highway to the west, having been trumped by the railroads, then interstate highways, and airline routes, it still is a primary flyway for waterfowl, especially the section from Sioux Falls down to Kansas City.

But, this wild river can also be gentle and sweet. Reflecting blue sky and green trees with a setting sun, it can lie there calm as glass. There are stretches with high cliffs squeeze the river into a narrow channel rushing through at a rapid speed where sheep gather on the cliffs to watch you pass. It is friendly to all kinds of four legged creatures, even though far less so than the virtual petting zoo Lewis and Clark found.

It gives and it takes away. Supplying the rich bottom land for bountiful crops one year, then chewing up the acres the next to spit it out of it’s mouth at the Mississippi. Farmers on the Missouri never know if their crop will be corn or catfish.

It is a restless river. Always moving. Always busy. In a hurry to make some unspecified appointment with destiny down river somewhere.

And in this the Missouri is brother to the trekker. We too experience this inner restlessness. We too want to be on the move. To be on our way. Trekkers are rolling stones. They have come down with wanderlust. To head off to some destined point down the river or up the trail.

We trekkers salute the Missouri River -- kin of trekkers.