[Music]
Whoa!
 
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Come on back...
Come on back... come on back and...
You got water off the stern!
Taking water in
the stern!
Come on back...
No - Let's just shove it out.
 
Oh!
That's wet!
Wrong spot...
You knew you were going to get wet today anyway!
You're just the first one...
[Music]
Hello. My name is Tom Elpel,
author of the award-winning book
Five Months on the Missouri River: Paddling a Dugout Canoe,
and I’d like to introduce you to my dugout canoe,
which I named “Belladonna Beaver,” usually
shortened to “Bella”.
I had the unique opportunity to carve this
beautiful canoe working in partnership with
Churchill Clark, the great-great-great-great
grandson of Captain William Clark of the Lewis
and Clark Expedition. We took a whole spring and summer to carve a gigantic 10,000 lb.
Douglas fir log into a canoe. Credit for the
beaver face goes to Churchill, who saw a knot
in the log as the eye of the beaver and carved the face accordingly.
After completing the canoe, I enlisted friends
and former students to join me on a five
month “Missouri River Corps of Rediscovery”
to paddle the entire length of the Missouri
River from its origin near Three Forks, Montana
to its terminus at the Mississippi River near
St. Louis.
Five Months on the Missouri River tells the
story of crafting the canoe and this once-in-a-lifetime
dream-come-true to paddle America's greatest
river and explore it much as Lewis and Clark
did 200 years ago. Each chapter begins with
a quote from the famed explorers, followed
by then-and-now comparisons between their
experiences and ours.
Our journey was admittedly much easier than
it was for Lewis and Clark, since they traveled
upstream and we paddled downstream. But we
did experience our share of challenges, such
as dealing with fifteen dams that have been
constructed on the river. At the first dam,
the boat ramp was blocked, turning our beautiful Belladonna into a heavy beast we had to extract
from the water, drag across the grass, and
jack it up onto the boat trailer.
The dams pool the water into reservoirs, creating
700 miles of flat water, the equivalent of
paddling from Seattle to San Francisco on
a lake—except that, like the ocean, the
lakes are seldom flat.
Battling wind and waves across the reservoirs
was by far the greatest challenge of the expedition,
but just when it seemed like it couldn’t
get any worse, we’d be blessed with calming
waters and smooth sailing. With practice,
we even perfected the skill of loading and
unloading the trailer to portage the dams.
[Music]
Throughout the journey, the goal of reaching
St. Louis was secondary to the broader goal
of discovering everything in between. As was
true for Lewis and Clark, the river served
as a conduit to explore the geographical
landscape and geology, practice wilderness
skills, and forage for wild foods along the
way. Every campsite offered a new opportunity
to hike, observe wildlife, meet people, and
discover the history and natural history of
the Missouri River.
We were privileged to paddle through some
of the most scenic and remote landscapes of
the lower 48 states, in one stretch taking
a month to paddle from one town to the next.
Not long after that, the guys picked up a
two-month old stray puppy, which became the
youngest member of our crew. Jubilee grew
up on the canoes as we paddled to St. Louis.
[Music]
Five Months on the Missouri River is as close
as you can get to experiencing the full length
of America's longest river without yet having
paddled it yourself. The book includes thirty-six
chapters and more than 700 photos chronicling
the expedition and the river from one end
to the other.
Turning to the chapter "Forts and Villages"
we find ourselves in the middle of North Dakota,
and if you look at the top of the page you'll
see that it is labeled with our location in
North Dakota, the date, August 17th, and that
we paddled from Garrison Dam to Knife River
Indian Villages National Historic Site. Here
we toured earthlodges and saw the traditional
gardens with the corn, beans, and squash that
the Mandan Indians grew and stored in their
caches by the thousands of bushels.
Turning the page again, we find ourselves
downstream at Cross Ranch State Park where
we camped, explored area trails, foraged for
wild grapes, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
Paddling the Missouri River is a lot like
exploring a 2,000-mile long national park.
Whether you are an avid paddler with dreams
of paddling the Missouri yourself or an armchair
adventurer, I invite you to join us for the
adventure of a lifetime.
We faced all kinds of weather and traveled
through one of the highest water years on
record, sometimes finding it challenging to
even find dry ground to stand on. But never
once did the scenery disappoint us as we paddled
with the changing seasons from June until
November.
This project has consumed nearly two years
of my life, between carving the canoe, gathering
a crew and preparing for the expedition, then
paddling the river, and subsequently writing
the book.
I am so proud to say that Five Months on the
Missouri River won the INDIE Excellence Award
for Best Travel Book. It really turned
out gorgeous, better than I ever imagined it.
That's the thing, as a writer and publisher,
I put hundreds and hundreds of hours into
a project like this, and I never really know
what I'm going to have until I see it in print
and I'm holding it in hand.
Screen colors are different from print colors,
so I'm holding my breath until I get it back
from the printer, and I have to say that I
think this is the most beautiful book that
I've ever published. The colors are vibrant,
the pictures just pop off the page, and when
I flip through the book and look at the text,
I just want to read it all over again.
To pick up your copy of Five Months on the
Missouri River, as well as my other books
on wilderness survival, nature, and sustainable
living, please go to our website at www.HOPSPress.com,
and be sure to check out our package deals
that are not found anywhere else.
