Paddling the Mighty Missouri with My Son was the Adventure of a Lifetime

Six days and 125 miles, following the paddle-strokes of Lewis and Clark on Montana's Wild and Scenic River

Just before dark and in sustained winds that would knock us off our feet, we pitched our tent on a low bluff above the river. After a dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate milk in the tent, we snuggled into our sleeping bags. Just as my eyes began to close, Mick whispered a quiet concern that if a strong gust of wind caught our rainfly, it might blow our entire tent, with us in it, into the river below us.

No, we didn’t hear banjo music.

For almost a week our ears were graced with the buzz of cicadas, the whistle of wind through narrow sandstone canyons and the steady rhythm of our paddles pulling through the wild river, propelling our canoe east.

And there was silence. A vast, peaceful and oddly comforting quiet, interrupted only by our own voices and the sound of the wind and the wildlife that call Montana’s Upper Missouri River “home.”

In 1805 Lewis and Clark traveled up the Missouri River in their quest for the Pacific Ocean. Sixty-two years later Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce crossed the Missouri at Cow Creek in their futile and heartbreaking attempt to flee to Canada.

In 1976 the 125-mile section of river between Fort Benton and US 191 was designated a Wild and Scenic River, and in 2001, President Bill Clinton named the 375,000 acres surrounding this section a National Monument.

On August 8, 2020, my 15-year-old son, Mick, and I packed our Honda Odyssey with camping gear, drove to Fort Benton, Montana, rented a canoe and paddled 150 miles down this Wild and Scenic section of our country’s longest river, the Mighty Missouri.

Now, before we go any further, there is something you should know about me.

I love nature and outdoor adventures. Some might call me “outdoorsy.” Some might even refer to me as an enthusiast.

But the truth is, I am a chicken. A scaredy-cat. A nervous Nelly.

When it comes to hanging out in Wild areas, I have a deep respect for things that are not within my control (ie: wild animals that are bigger than me, water currents that are stronger than me, strange men with guns, and so on).

When I camp at Donner Lake or Tuolumne Meadows, I sleep with the van keys and bear spray under my pillow and I always introduce myself to the families on either side of my campsite. I’m not being neighborly; I just need to know I’ll have allies in the middle of the night when the bears and gun-toting men show up.

It is no small accomplishment, then, that Mick and I not only survived, but thrived, on our six-day, self-guided, Wild and Scenic Missouri River adventure.

We did not drown and we did not get eaten by wolves. We heard a few gunshots, but nobody killed us. Most importantly, we did not end up in Kansas City.

As the summer of 2019 ended, and months before we would hear the words Coronavirus or Covid, Mick and I had gone for an evening walk. We were sad to see summer ending and we talked about all the things we wanted to do the next summer. Among a hundred potential experiences that made our list was “Canoe the Missouri River in the paddle strokes of Lewis and Clark.” It was more of a fun addition to our dream list than it was a plan. But as August 2020 approached, and Mick and I realized this odd summer of quarantine and lockdowns was passing us by, we remembered that entry on our list.

With nothing to lose, we packed our dry bags, tent, camping gear and cooler and headed out, camping our way through Idaho and Montana to Fort Benton. We arrived at the outfitter headquarters on the morning of August 10, paid for our boat, made arrangements for our van to be shuttled to the James Kipp Recreation Area where our trip would end and drove another 45 miles east to Coal Banks where our canoe was waiting for us.

We received only two pieces of advice from Missouri River Outfitters:

1. Don’t drag the canoe through shallow, rocky water because it will scar the bottom;

2. When you take the canoe out onto the bank at the end of each day, make sure it is completely out of the water, otherwise it will float away during the night.

The first piece of advice proved impossible to follow and within five minutes of putting our canoe in the shallow, rocky water at Coal Banks, we christened our new boat “Scarface.” The second piece of advice elicited a solemn promise between my young first mate and me that we would not embarrass ourselves by losing our boat to the Fort Peck Reservoir 223 miles downriver.

And with that, we were on our way. Armed with our Bureau of Land Management maps, Mick took his seat at the front of the boat. He would serve as the navigator for the next week, identifying the geological formations and islands marked on the map and pinpointing our exact location by river mile.

I spent my days steering from the back of the boat, making sure we cleared big rocks, stayed upright in the rapids and battled the winds that pushed us every direction but forward.

When we put our canoe in the water on that first morning, we had a plan for where we would camp each night. Eagle Creek, Slaughter River, Lone Pine Rapids, Gist Bottom, Hideaway. It was a thoughtfully planned itinerary, for sure.

Remember that Woody Allen quote, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans”? God had some good belly laughs during the second week of August.

On our first night, before Mick had perfected his map-reading skills, we mistakenly sailed miles past our intended camp of Eagle Creek. Instead, we spent the night under a huge cottonwood tree in the shadow of Hole in the Wall.

Having paddled more miles than we had planned on day one, we adjusted our destination for our second night, thinking we would “wing-it.” Just before dark and near tears, having found no other places to pull up our boat, we settled on a rocky sandbar, barely big enough for our tent. We drifted to sleep with water rushing on three sides of us and to the sound of a small animal clawing under the plastic floor of our tent between our sleeping bags.

Another night, again, just before dark and in sustained winds that would knock us off our feet, we pitched our tent on a low bluff above the river. After a dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate milk in the tent, we snuggled into our sleeping bags. Just as my eyes began to close, Mick whispered a quiet concern that if a strong gust of wind caught our rainfly, it might blow our entire tent, with us in it, into the river below us. I reminded him how much I weigh, told him there was nothing to worry about and that he should go to sleep. Fifteen minutes later, with the wind still raging and haunted by the image of being tangled in a zipped-up tent at the bottom of the dark Missouri River with paddlefish lurking everywhere, I got up and removed the rainfly. It rained only a little that night.

From the peaceful green valley lined with cottonwoods at the start of our ride to the stunning White Cliffs to the ruggedly beautiful Badlands, it felt like we were traveling through an interactive nature museum, designed just for us. I had to repeatedly remind myself that the scenes surrounding us were not divinely inspired works of art. They were not the toppled ruins of ancient temples or the remains of monumental marble sculptures.

They were, rather, the result of tens of millions of years of glacial flows, volcanic eruptions and the folding and faulting of the earth. There were too many geological landmarks to describe – Hole in the Wall, Steamboat Rock, Seven Sisters – all of them perfectly named. But one formation that stunned us as we came around a bend was Dark Butte and the Archangel. The butte, dark and foreboding, loomed over the river. Directly in front of it, almost like a guardian protecting us from the doom of the butte behind it, was what appeared to be a towering, white sandstone angel, her massive wings spread to the sky. It was like nothing I had ever seen, breathtaking and awesome.

I wish I had photos of all the animals and strange bugs we saw. There were too many Bald and Golden eagles to count, sometimes nestled high up in the shade of the sandstone cliffs and other times soaring down over the river to snap up lunch. 140-pound paddlefish swirled around our boat and the river’s edge was alive with ducks, geese, frogs and turtles. One of the benefits of paddling into the evening was seeing the deer and Bighorn sheep come down to the water for a drink. One night, we watched as beavers came out from their dens to retrieve dinner for their families. The babies remained on the bank, pushing their little faces out from the sticks and reeds as their parents swam to the middle of the river.

There were old homesteads along the way, dilapidated but still standing. The roofless log cabins and free-standing chimneys were reminders of those adventurers who’d made their way to this new land after Lewis and Clark showed them it was possible, only to find that the climate, terrain and remoteness, while beautiful, made it too difficult to build a life.

Other than the deserted homesteads, an abandoned ferry landing that once accommodated bootleggers headed to Canada and a few worn trails leading to spectacular views, this land remains as it did when Lewis and Clark explored it. In fact, everywhere you look you will see and hear things that Lewis and Clark wrote about in their journals. The pesky prickly pear, gnats, mosquitoes, eagles, coyotes and mud. So much mud. It remains as it existed over 200 years ago.

In the six days we spent paddling the river, camping and hiking the land, we didn’t see one piece of litter or trash. Not one beer can or candy wrapper. Other than my sunglasses resting quietly on the murky bottom at river mile 112, you would be hard-pressed to find any sign of human life left behind. In a time when it is difficult to feel comfortable with the world, when it comes to the Missouri River National Monument, things are as they were meant to be.

There is so much more to share. I want to tell you about the meteor showers in the darkest, clearest night sky I’ve ever seen. I want you to hear the coyotes barking and howling at each other in the middle of the night. I want to share the disappointment we felt when we reached Judith Landing on our third day and found there was no snack bar. Designated as a “Developed Access Site” on our map, we had allowed the hot sun and wishful thinking to influence us into believing there might be a place we could pick up a Diet Coke and some Doritos. Apparently, “developed” means it has a vault toilet and a fire ring. No snack bar. No Doritos.

Mostly, I want to tell you that you should go. That you should pack up your camping gear, grab your favorite people, reserve a canoe and go paddle the Missouri River. It wasn’t expensive. It didn’t require any special skills, equipment or even planning. It was completely achievable and it was the adventure of a lifetime.

And if a scaredy-cat like me can do it, surely you can, too.

You can reach me at dunningsm@gmail.com