SUMMER PLUS is a supplement to The Spokesman-Review • Wednesday, MAY 24, 2023
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At Missouri River Speed By Jean Arthur Marketing Correspondent
As soon as we launch from the Bureau of Land Management’s Coal Banks Landing, the river pushes our canoes at a rolling four miles per hour. Right away, trout dapple the surface in a frenzied sup for bugs. At river right, a great blue heron ignores us, focusing instead on its sub-surface prey — fish or frog, salamander or snake — yummy delights to a 50-inches-tall bird that nests in colonies, sometimes 80 feet above waterways in the trees. Giant cottonwood leaves shimmy in the breeze, and we dip paddles into the “Mighty Mo,” the Missouri River of northern Montana. My family and I paddle canoes into the
Jean Arthur/Marketing Correspondent Riverside camp at the Hole in the Wall, Missouri River.
deep green swirl of the Missouri, downstream of Ft. Benton, Mont., a wild west town of 1,443 residents, including Nicole Fugere, owner/operator of Missouri River Outfitters from whom we rented canoes and a vehicle shuttle and garnered some advice too. “People always ask what’s the best time to paddle,” Fugere says. “It depends, I answer. Everyone has a preference for what they want in a river trip. Is their number-one preference warm water or cooler days for longer hikes? Do they seek wildflowers, birds or a secluded trip? These all play a factor.” Early summer for wildflowers and cooler hikes give way to late July and early August hot days and hot soaks, while
May, September and even October see few floaters. MRO’s guided trips include gourmet meals, “locally-sourced gourmet meals including garbanzos, lentils, barley and local ranch meats. We preserve treats like wild service berries, chokecherries and even serve pickled cattail.” Cots and wall tents, plush pillows and warm sleeping bags accompany the outfitters’ trips. A paddling historian narrates tales of Native Americans and Lewis and Clark, fur trappers and farmers. Some MRO trips even showcase musicians. Other trips showcase surprises. “Guests were enjoying morning coffee when we all watched a coyote tackle deer in the river,” says Fugere. “We heard the deer screaming. The deer and coyote
parted ways once the predator recognized that we were there as witnesses. We’ve heard baby screech owls, watched fledgling bald eagles learning to fly and watched porcupines mating—quite a sight.” While we hear great horned owls nearly every night and see a barn owl, no porcupines punctuate this trip. We paddle 47 river miles over four days to the Judith Landing take out. The river map reveals that the Missouri stretches 2,341 miles from headwaters in Montana’s Centennial Mountains to spring then creek and tributary. Waters rush north, merging the Gallatin, Madison and Jefferson Rivers at Three Forks, rumbling on to Great Falls and Fort Benton,