The drive to Great Falls went great with a large portion of it along the Missouri River. Looked like a great place to fish. There were several "float boats" noted and it looks like it might be a great place to kayak.

I took a bike ride to the Missouri River and then into the town of Great Falls. The route I chose had an excellent, wide bike path that led me to the paved bike path along the Missouri River that runs from the Sunshine dam (ten miles east of town) to just south of the town center. I rode through the town too, and enjoyed the low level of traffic and the one-way streets with three lanes; easy city riding and a great way to see the city “up close and personal.” Total ride was only about 23 miles, but it did feel good to get back in the saddle again.  

Lisa and I drove to Giant Springs State Park to see what is there. It turned out to be pretty impressive. Chrystal clear, cold spring water comes up from the ground and then flows right into the Missouri River. The amount of water is 160 million gallons per day and it remains at a constant 54 degrees of temperature. Lisa and I got to drink some of it and it is great. The water from the spring flows about 80 feet to the river, so it is considered the shortest river in the United States. There are some fish in the spring, but, alas, no fishing allowed (rats!). This spring is also located right next to the Giant Springs Fish Hatchery. We saw some large trout of varying colors at the hatchery, but there was not much else there. We then decided to take a walk upstream along the Missouri to the first of five dams near Great Falls. Great Falls was named after one of these falls, but right now, the full capacity of the river is being routed through power generation plants, so there is no water going over the falls. Bummer. Lisa and I have visited and photographed two of the dams, Black Eagle and Rainbow, but we plan to go see the remaining three tomorrow. You will be able to see the photos of the dams in the photos section of the blog. We then decided to walk along the river to the Black Eagle dam. It turned out to be about 4.5 miles and it was fairly hot out. We did manage to get some exercise though.

Today we attended an Indian Pow Wow celebrating the Bison and the life they brought to the native Americans of the region. The location of the Pow Wow was at First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park near Ulm, Montana. This is a location where buffalo were run off cliffs to provide food for the Indians. They had ceremonial dancing and singing that I plan to put into a video shortly. This year's ceremony was being planned and conducted by the Little Shell band of the Chippewa Indian Tribe. You can see the Indian dress in the photos of the event and we also got to see the mayor of Great Falls and their local representative to the federal House of Representatives; not to mention all the tribal leaders. They sang traditional songs and one that, basically, is their National Anthem. We also hiked to the cliffs and ran across two rattlesnakes and four gopher snakes.   The first rattlesnake was a large one and we did not see it until it began to rattle; we nearly stepped on it. We were very lucky not to be bitten by this snake. Up until the early 1700s, the Indian tribes would have certain warriors who were considered “buffalo runners.” They would don buffalo calf skins and then proceed out into the herd to intermingle. It seems that these herds were primarily females and calves with the bulls often staying separate until the mating season. It also seems that there was a dominate female that, more or less, controlled the herd; kind of like traveling with Lisa – she is in charge!) The Indian “buffalo runner” would find the dominate female and then place himself in a position to spook that buffalo towards the cliffs; the others would follow. As the stampede began, the buffalo runner would run with the herd and search for a pre-planned place where he would jump over the cliff to a small ledge where he would remain until the stampede stopped. Once the stampede was over, the rest of the tribe would descend upon the injured buffalo and kill them and take the animal for food and all other needs of the tribe. This “buffalo runner” was regarded quite highly by the tribe, and I could see why. Unfortunately, up until the early 1700s many buffalo were killed and not taken by the tribe due to the shear mass of animals that died. After the early 1700s, the Indians used horses to run-down and kill the buffalo and only what was needed was taken. Worse yet, in the about a 10-year period of the late 1800s, the buffalo were nearly killed to extinction by white buffalo hunters and people killing the animals to feed men building the railroads out west.  

Today we drove to Craig, Idaho, on the Missouri River half-way between Great Falls and Helena for a kayaking trip. Our goal is to kayak 15 miles, which sounds like a long distance, but it is all downstream. I don’t know how Lewis and Clark did it since they brought their boats up the river at this location. What really helped is that there are three fly-fishing shops right in the town of Craig (which is super small) and the one called The Trout Store provided us with a vehicle shuttle. We simply parked our truck in the parking lot near the launch, placed the keys locked inside in one of the drink holders, and locked the door with the outside door code control. We left the code to open the door with the people at the Trout Store and they drove it down to where we planned to get out. Pretty cool. When we arrive at our planned destination, our truck was right there waiting for us. I opened the door with the code, and the keys were waiting for me.  The river drops less than 80 feet over the entire 15 miles of the drift, but the water is moving along a fast clip; I would say about five miles per hour. No major rapids to navigate, just current and some shallows to watch out for. We say three bald eagles along the way. We also met a nice couple and the guy had built his own drift boat; it was amazing. (See the photos) He had about ten wooden fly cases that he had also made and about 15 gillion flies (although he admitted that he only used about ten to fish the river). I thought of Don Denault when I saw this boat; Don, who builds his own kayaks, and this guy would get along great! The wind came up for the last mile, but we were able to handle it without too much trouble. Another great kayaking trip (we thought of Laura Valoppe as we drifted along; she would love this down-river trip.