I have visited parts of Montana, including driving along the banks of much of the Yellowstone River. However, researching the Upper Missouri River territory in Montana opened a new world about which I knew almost nothing.
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| Area between yellow arrows approximate location of Upper Missouri River Breaks |
The Missouri River is the longest river in the United States. It flows east and then south for 2, 341 miles from the eastern Centennial range of the Bitterroot Mountains to where it empties into the Mississippi river north of St. Louis, Missouri. It drains over 500,000 square miles of watershed—much of it arid country—including ten states in the United States and two Canadian provinces. One of the great obstacles for any transportation or settlement in this area was the Upper Missouri River Breaks.
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The Upper Missouri River Breaks area is a badlands that starts at about Fort Benton, Montana, in the west and follows the Missouri River for 149 miles east to what is today’s James Kipp Wildlife Recreation Area. For those who like remote territory, this will appeal. It was a region explored by the Lewis and Clark Expedition early in the nineteenth century. The following is what Capt. Clark wrote about the badlands:
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“This country may with propriety, I think, be termed the Deserts of America, as I do not conceive any part can ever be settled, as it is deficient in water, timber, and too steep to be tilled.”
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In the early days of exploration and riverboat travel, the west-east flow section of the Missouri River was known as the upper Missouri, or northern route of the Missouri. It was shallow, often turbulent, and filled with snags (downed trees with branches that snagged boat bottoms, sometimes called sawyers). The entire Missouri River was known for its ever-shifting sandbars, often submerged mere inches below muddy water that rendered them all but invisible. The upper Missouri River, including the Breaks area, was no exception.
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| Citadel Rock painted by Karl Bodmer, c.1833 |
When it came to riverboat travel, the upper Missouri from Sioux City, Iowa, north soon became restricted to specialized steamboats with very shallow hulls, spoon-shaped bows, and low profiles that allowed them to avoid the worst of the submerged sandbars. They were able travel much farther up the river than the steamboats that plied the other large rivers or even the lower Missouri River. This restriction was not due to legislation, but due to experience received as far too many riverboats with deeper hulls having met their ends in the Muddy Missouri.
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| Steamboat on neighboring Yellowstone River aground on sandbar. Note snags in front. |
Due to the shallow water level and the river freezing solid in the winter—often as early as November—and not thawing out until late March or April, the most reasonable farthest point for navigation by even the shallowest, lowest profile steamboat was Fort Benton. Fort Benton is considered the most westerly end of the Upper Missouri River Breaks region. Even after the ice began to break up, the threat of it cutting into steamship bottoms was as great as snags. Roustabouts were employed to—among other tasks—keep watch to help the vessels stay clear of ice chunks as well as snags. So it was when steamboats traveled these last 149 miles approaching Fort Benton that they often encountered obstacles that threatened to capsize their vessels, leading possibly to the loss of human life as well as cargo.
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Although many steamboats bound for Fort Benton left in late March or early April with the hope that the snowmelt would raise the river level enough to avoid many of the obstacles, that window when the ability steam all the way to Fort Benton existed did not last the full season. Often, both goods and passengers bound for Fort Benton and points beyond were off-loaded at a place called Cow Island, located at the easterly end of the Breaks region. Although the island is near the southwestern riverbank, it actually served more as a landmark than a landing. The transfer of goods and passengers took place near the mouth of Cow Creek on the northeast riverbank, the bed of which served as one of the few passes through the steep sedimentary rocks, composed predominantly of sandstone and shale. By traveling to the headwaters of the creek, freight trains were able to skirt the northern boundaries of the Breaks region and eventually reach Fort Benton.
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| Schultz map, c. early 1900s |
When one reads “Cow Creek,” “Bull Creek,” or “Two Calf Creek” on the old maps, it is important to think “bison” or ‘buffalo,” not “beef.” This was not cattle country. There was insufficient pastureland and water to support raising large herds of livestock. The Upper Missouri River Breaks region served as a migratory route for the herds of bison moving between their northern and southern grazing grounds. They did not stay in the Breaks region long.
Today, steamboats no longer work their way up and down this treacherous section of what is considered a challenging river from its headwaters to its outlet in the Mississippi River. Instead, to preserve its rugged beauty for future generations, it is now included in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, which was created January 17, 2001. If you wish to visit, plan to take your hiking shoes and survival gear. It is still as wild and rugged as it was 200 years ago when it was first explored by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
In my recent release, Hal’sLucky Escape, my hero and heroine, Hal and Marta, travel the upper Missouri River on the steamboat Far West. Although they leave at a good time with expectations their ship will take them all the way to Fort Benton, they discover they must leave the vessel at Cow Island and travel with a freight train through the Upper Missouri River Breaks. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE
Sources:
Wikimedia commons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Missouri_River_Breaks_National_Monument
https://a-drifting-cowboy.blogspot.com/2011/10/montana-canoe-adventure-floating.html
https://www.blm.gov/programs/national-conservation-lands/montana-dakotas/upper-missouri-river-breaks
https://www.missouribreaks.org/the-breaks/history/
