Great Falls Montana

In 1804 President Jefferson sent an expedition west to explore the new lands recently acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. Two Soldiers name Lewis and Clark were asked to lead the expedition west and it is well documented how the expedition went. The main goal was to find and map a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. Today we know that the expedition failed completely in finding the route but what it did discover was unimaginable. The hardships the men must have experienced going against the natural flow of the river must have been severe, yet history tells us that when they reached the Great Falls of the Missouri, for which the city of Great Falls Montana was named, it almost ended in failure. The great falls consisted of five different water falls that some-how had to be passed. Since they were travelling in large dugout canoes it was impossible to go any further on the river but go on, they must. Lewis and Clark thought that it would take a day at most to portage around the fall but to portage around the five falls took almost a month!

Today the river is controlled by a series of dams that generate electricity for the area so with the water level being adjusted by the dams it is difficult to imagine just how severe it was.

To recount the entire expedition would take several blog postings but I wanted to point out the importance of the “Great Falls” on the Missouri River.

There is a Giant spring bubbling out of the ground alongside the river and it is the head water of one of the shortest rivers in the country. According to the sign at the spring it explained the Giant Spring is the results of millions of ground water running into the ground southwest of Great Falls and then over time the water is forced to the surface not too many miles away but about fifty years apart! It beats me how scientists figured this one out, but they did. The river is called the Roe River and it is only 201 feet long running into the longest river in the country.

Adjacent to the Giant Spring is a fish hatchery that raises trout and a few other sport fish that will survive in the Missouri River. It offered a short self-guided tour and a large pool of trout. While looking at the hatchery I spied an unusual sight in the river, pelicans! Yes, I said pelicans being accustomed to seeing them on the east coast I was somewhat surprised to see them here in the Missouri River.

Another attraction in the area is The First People Buffalo Jump State Park. In the visitor center there was a very good display explaining the relationship between the plains native and the buffalo. There probably wasn’t any part of the animal that was wasted. Since so many buffalo were required to support their way of life hunting buffalo became more like harvesting them instead of hunting. One of the ways they would harvest large numbers of buffalo would be to utilize what is called a buffalo jump. I would call it a buffalo push instead but either way a large number of buffalo died each time it was utilized. First the buffalo have to be grazing somewhere above the cliff area. Next a boy possibly 13 to 16 years of age would drape a buffalo calf skin over himself and try to encourage the head cow of the herd to follow him. If he got the herd to start moving other natives that covered themselves with wolf pelts would encourage the herd to move along. Once the herd was close enough the boy leading them would sprint out ahead of the herd and leap to safety just over the edge of the cliff. I wonder how many young men perished when they missed their safety spot? The first buffalo would see that there was a cliff but with so many behind them it was probably fatal for all of the herd. As soon as possible men would rush in and dispatch any of the buffalo that may have survived the fall and soon after that the women would start processing the meat. Several days of celebration would follow a successful hunt and the natives would move on once they had secured their supply of meat.

Several years ago, I was introduced to Geocaching by my good friend Drew Horseman and every once in a while, I will go hunting for them. Today we looked for one at the Great Falls Visitor Center and although we didn’t manage to find it we did get see an interesting sculpture. It depicted a native and it was amazing the materials it was made from. As far as we could tell all it was constructed of all recycled materials. His headdress appeared to be an old push broom and hair was old bicycle chains. We identified an old glovebox, pieces of chrome body molding and so much more.

Well, it is official we got inspected and logged in yesterday for our trip and the next few days will keep us busy here is camp before leaving on Wednesday so this might be it until Canada.

By 1:30 PM MDT tomorrow should be at our first destination in Canada depending on phone and internet service the updates will continue.