By the Numbers

It's amazing how the the mind becomes obsessed by numbers with so many hours a day spent idle while the body labors.  So I thought I'd share a few of the numbers my mind just won't let go of.

Days on river - 39
Miles completed - 1,127
Miles to St. Louis - 1,194
Miles to Gulf of Mexico - 2,573
Lake miles completed - 395
Lake miles to go - 350
Dams portaged - 7
Dams left to portage - 4
Average miles per day - 29
Longest day - 57 miles
Longest lake day - 37 miles
Shortest day - 0
Days in Montana - 24
Days in North Dakota - 14
Day life jackets were acquired - 10
Day Hupp bought gloves - 34
Day bailer was acquired - 38
Longest stretch Betty B spent without beer on board - 9
Loads of laundry - 1
Hot showers - 2

An Oil Boom in North Dakota

"These waves are a bit disorganized," Greg commented. To which I replied, "Yeah, they really ought to get their shit together."  We were in the middle of an open water crossing on Lake Sakakawea when the winds increased in strength followed by the waves. We were trying to get around a rocky point beyond which the lake turned from the north back to the east and we would have the wind at our backs. Presently, however, we were at the mercy of an ever increasing side wind kicking up 4 foot high choppy waves that were hitting us broadside and the Betty B tossed about dangerously. Taking a wave over the side would most likely drown the canoe.

Greg shouted that if we took a wave over the side he'd turn us directly to shore. It would then be an expect the worst but paddle like hell to attain the best situation. Fortunately we rounded the point without incident and continued eastward towards the Garrison Dam. By the end of the day we had put 36 miles behind us, paddling for 9.5 hours.

We were restless and determined to cover ground after having spent 44 hours pinned down, hunkered against a high mud bank as the wind howled from the east at 20 MPH. Our rhythm had been interrupted and we were desperate to get it back. The rhythm of life on the water dominated by 7-10 hours of paddling every day had been brought to a halt and for 44 hours we sat, we paced, we stared out at the water as if willing the wind to die.

In the distance on the far shore, a constant reminder of our maddening lack of motion burning with a taunting arrogance was the off gassing flame of an oil derrick. The countryside around the lake has been experiencing an oil boom the last 3-5 years and for days now we have constantly been in sight of at least a few oil derricks. The day before the wind hit I counted 13 in view while paddling and then camped on shore as evening darkened I could see 13 flames on just the opposite shore and behind us within a quarter mile were four more.

Just inside North Dakota we caught a ride 22 miles into town with a local who took us shopping and then drove us 22 miles back to the river. On the drive our gracious host told us about the boom. When I asked how it affected the locals, if it was seen as good or bad he replied, "Oh, little of both, But more and more we're seeing more of the bad."

The oil boom has driven up the price of real estate and there's an oil company trying to force him to sell out at less than market value. Crime has skyrocketed and there isn't the housing to room the workers. Then there's the oil companies tendency to to do their best to take all the money and leave as little as possible to the locals.

Most often the landowner is not the owner of the mineral rights in North Dakota. These were often separated generations back. So the owner of the mineral rights can lease the rights to minerals underneath another person's property. Once the oil company has the lease to the minerals they are not bound by law to notify the landowner. So, a property owner may very well just look out their window one morning to find fence being ripped out and heavy equipment dozing a pad for the upcoming derrick.

For those that own the mineral rights it is required by law for a broker to be involved as a middle man. The law also requires the oil companies to pay out 20% of the rig to the leaseholder and the broker. For years no one told the leaseholders this so the brokers were signing them to 5% and keeping 15% of each rig for themselves. Recently the locals have wizened to this, and the brokers are having to settle for 5% on new leases.

If fought on an individual basis the oil companies will be required to pay damages to the landowner and perhaps even lease the land they're using but it seems they do their damnedest to not let that happen. The situation reminds me of a line from the Tom Russell song called "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall" that goes something like "As I travel around this land of ours the man that I most fear is the man in a golf shirt with a cell phone in his ear."

The dams and the derricks, the flames on the horizon and the sprawling unnatural lakes are enough to get a man low but my faith in humanity is strengthened by the everday folks we meet on the river with an immediate, unasked for willingness to do what they can to help us on our way, a selfless desire to help another human. Whether they be shopowners in Oregon, bus drivers in North Dakota, or villagers in Alaska I feel better about this world because they are in it.

People is People

I am not a fan of guidebooks. Generally speaking I feel they lack the information I desire and are chock full of shit I don't need. In Fort Benton, Montana Greg and I bought a guidebook. "The Complete Paddler" by David Miller. We needed the maps. Maps on the upper Missouri are difficult to come by and state road maps just don't cut it when it comes to knowing where you are on a river. Other than the maps and the fact that he gives the reader ample opportunity to ridicule him, there isn't much use to the book. He spends way too much time describing the river channel in a bend by bend play by play which is useless considering it is a dynamic, ever changing, body of flowing water, but that is not the topic here. I have one main problem with Miller.

The problem began with Wolf Point, Montana but it continues across into North Dakota. When describing Wolf Point Miller goes into great detail regarding his experience passing by town in which a drunk with a handgun fired several rounds in his direction. He didn't know whether the drunk was firing at him or not but felt the rounds came too close. This could happen on any river near any town in this fair country of ours but it happened to Miller in Wolf Point. It would be fine in a guide if you were including it as a bit of colorful narrativebut Miller takes it way too far including that 10 years ago someone of the river was beaten up and that a paddler should go nowhere near the town. Not only that but while paddling by stay as close to the opposite bank as possible and paddle as fast as you can.

The ridiculousness of this tickles my sense of humor but it offends my sense of ethics as well. In describing Wolf Point in such demonizing terms he fails not only Wolf Point whose reputation is soured by this guidebook but the paddler as well who has been cheated of their right to approach that town with the same anxious nervousness they approach every other town with. A certain fear of the unknown but also an excitement about what may happen. And overwhelmingly what happens is a beautiful experience involving the kindness of strangers, such as when we pulled in to Wolf Point's boat ramp (Miller describes as an obvious party spot and to be avoided). It was neat and clean when we got there, we dumped our trash and looked around for some water. We didn't find any and were about to disembark when an old fella with a dog pulled up in a pickup, "You fellas looking for water? Won't find any here. But if you jump in I can drive you to the bar down the road and get some." Not only did we fill our water jugs but we also had another wonderful experience in a river town, something Miller may have experienced had he had the balls to get out and say hello.

Instead Miller spent the rest of his time running scared through the Fort Peck Indian Reservation terrified to meet anyone, hiding his camp in the willow bushes and keeping his head low. Even down into North Dakota at the reservation there he describes the campground as nice but not a place to leave your boat untended. It became clear that Miller is afraid. He's afraid those whisky drinkin Injuns are gonna steal his boat, take his scalp, and leave him for dead. What he needs to learn is that the Greek deli owner in Muppets Take Manhattan was right, "People is People".

As for our part, later on after getting water at Wolf Point we were camped on a sandbar looking across at the reservation when a pickup truck drove down to the river and a few guys got out, saw us, and jumped back in the truck. They drove back up river a couple hundred yards and let out a mighty barrrage of gunfire into the river that lasted 20 minutes or more.

People is People and no matter where you go in this fair country of ours wherever there's a river sooner or later there's gonna be a truckload of whisky drinkin rednecks of one race or another lettin of a maelstrom of bullets into the belly of that river. Why? Cause that's God damned good fun right there. And as a paddler all you can hope for is that they have the courtesy to move upstream a couple hundred yards before letting off that first barrage of gunfire in the direction of your simmering pot of beans.

The Shadow of The Missouri

Stubborness? Definitely has something to do with why we're out here, beating our heads against an unrelenting headwind, driving through crashing waves. Sure, stubborness is part of it. An unwillingness to give, a refusal to relent, an indomitable desire to beat the wind, to be stronger than the wind. But there's more to it than that. There's the urge for going, the natural urge for a river to flow and our desire to be a part of it. And the desire to put beyond us the barrier between us and the natural flow. To get beyond the dam. There's also the practical side of things. Wind on a water this big can blow for days, a week or more maybe, and at some point action is a necessity to life.

We rode a tailwind the first day on the lake. Set up a campchair for a sail and skipped along at 5 MPH, surfing three foot waves and crashing through a maze of half submerged junipers on the strength of the wind. It's been five days across the lake, defined by paddling from point to point, often across big, open water, sometimes flat, often not, churned up by wind driven waves.

We steadily paddle passed fisherman in small boats, most of whom offer a slight wave of the hand, some a bit of conversation. Those that speak, that ask how far we're going offer the inevitable, "Have fun!" We awkwardly answer in some vague affirmative, not having the time or the inclination or the energy perhaps to explain... very little of this is fun.

Paddling into a driving wind, grueling out 2 miles an hour is not fun, crossing an open bay fighting a cross channel side wind taking huge waves against the side of the canoe the closest shore over a mile distant is not fun. Watching the channel disappear into a windrow of half submerged trees, picking a gap beyond which water can be seen and relying on the wind to send you crashing through is both exhilirating and terrifying but it's only fun in the recollecting once you are safely drinking a Keystone Light on shore.

We aren't out here for a pleasure cruise. We're out here to join the river on it's seaward path. To take our part in a conversation that spans millenia. It is rewarding and it is humbling. And every evening we sit back and reflect on accomplishments attained through physical labor and mental strength. Reflections made in the shadow of the might of the Missouri.