The title is slang for being crazy, and that’s how most people described Lisa Dill’s decision to go, as the subtitle says, Floating Down the Missouri River.
We don’t hear much about the Missouri, despite it being the longest river in the U.S. and one of the most dangerous. There’s the folksong Oh, Shenandoah (another river) with its refrain: “Away, we’re bound away, / Across the wide Missouri.” I’ve read stories set on the Platte, which is a tributary of the Missouri, and of course many stories set on the river it runs into: the Mississippi. Writers like Mark Twain and William Faulkner filled my imagination, enhancing childhood experiences of the Mighty Mississippi such as the night I spent on the Delta Queen, a sternwheel steamboat.
So I welcomed the chance to learn more about the Missouri. It runs from southern Montana through the Dakotas, between Iowa and Nebraska, along Kansas and into Missouri before emptying into the Mississippi. Along the way it gathers strength, not just from the Platte, but also from the Yellowstone River, the Big Sioux River, and many others.
Although she is a college professor in Delaware, Dill has family in Iowa. When she found that four of her mother’s cousins had decided to take their 40-year-old pontoon boat down the river from Sioux City, Iowa, to St. Louis, Missouri, where they would sell it, she jumped at the chance to join them.
True, the somewhat rickety boat was more suited to the lake where they’d always used it than to the powerful Missouri. But two weeks on their old FloteBote would give her a chance to get to know both the cousins and the river.
The book, recommended by the person who gave me Brave the Wild River about two women who paddled down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, surprised me by how it held my attention. Dill uses all of our senses to help us share the experience while also exploring some aspect of the Missouri River’s history, ecology, climate, geography, and role in the economy.
There are a few setbacks, like the engine not starting on the first day, and some alarming near misses, but for the most part the pace reflects the rolling of the river. My interest never wavered, and I read the book straight through. The tales Dill tells of recent floods and long-ago explorations, of attempts to tame the river and those who live near it, all provide plenty of drama.
Another reason it’s such a pleasure to read is simply how well Dill writes. Her sentences are clear and varied. They lead one into another in an easy, conversational way that must have been difficult to achieve so consistently. She’s simply an interesting person to hang out with for a while. Also, conversations with the cousins and with people they meet when they tie up for the evening pepper the story, providing a little variety.
Most important of all is the way she structures chapters to be a good balance of her personal experience and information that helps us better understand what we’re experiencing. Even complex information goes down easily; it’s hard not to be interested in such details. In a blog post, Dill writes:
I worked as hard as I could to create transitions, to figure out ways to move gracefully from the complexity of underwater engineering, flood data, and endangered species I hadn’t seen to the experience of sailing what one relative called “elderly flotsam” down the longest river on the continent. I sifted through mountains of research, looking for not just the important historical facts and scientific data, but for ways to connect it to the story of the trip, the story of my family, the story of the 40-year-old pontoon boat that somehow survived 750 miles on the Missouri River intact.
These transitions and connections are what make the story so engaging. I learned a lot about the Missouri, from the number of wrecked steamboats still never recovered to the ongoing attempts to rein in the river’s wanderings. These days I live where a large river joins an even larger river. The Abenaki called the area Wantastegok which means “at the place of the lost river.” We’ve suffered floods and droughts in recent years, so much of the story here resonated with me.
Also, as Dill points out, rivers hold a fascination for cultures all over the world, Often sacred and sometimes symbolic of eternal truths, rivers are as romantic and powerful a part of the landscape of our lives as oceans and mountains.
And then there’s the joy of embarking on a mad adventure like taking an old FloteBote down the river to where it ends.
What do you know about the Missouri River? What mad adventures would you like to undertake?