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As we’re reminded over and over, Nebraska doesn’t have mountains like Colorado and Wyoming, and doesn’t have the beaches of California or Florida.
That’s one of the reasons, we’re told, the Cornhusker State is among the least visited of all the states.
I even heard this during a recent distillery tour out in Kentucky: “You’re from Nebraska!” the tour guide exclaimed. “Isn’t that the least-visited state in the union?”
Geez. But we have an abundance of rivers in our state.
From the “mile wide and an inch deep” Platte and its multitudes of Sandhill cranes, to the quiet solitude of the Niobrara, there’s a river for everyone.
Kayakers find great challenges on the Dismal and Snake, a livestock tank makes for a relaxing and unique ride down one of the Loups, the Cedar or the Republican, and nothing beats a float down the Niobrara or Long Pine.
I’m a big fan of the Missouri myself, having lived near it in eastern Nebraska.
I’ve camped on its banks, fished the crystal clear waters of Sunshine Bottoms, boated through windswept waves, and written stories about great floods and a Lincoln man’s attempt to swim down it from Sioux City to Omaha. (He didn’t make it.)
It is a river of many stories. My mom, whose family was from Wakefield, used to tell us that you could drive across the Missouri on the ice during winter at South Sioux City. An uncle’s ultimate dream was to clandestinely drive a car (with deflated tires to ride the rails) across the long railroad bridge at Sioux City.
It’s one of the world’s great rivers and the liquid highway that led explorers, trappers and steamboats into the vast interior of our nation. Watching its ever-flowing waters roll by made you wonder what the river had passed upstream, and what might it encounter down.
Poet and author John Neihardt called the Missouri an “eternal fighting man.”
“I think God wished to teach the beauty of a virile soul fighting its way to peace – and his precept was the Missouri,” he wrote in his book, “The River and I.”
Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Neihardt Foundation Board after, years ago, being urged by my grandma to read “Black Elk Speaks.” But I’ve also read the Missouri River book, which chronicles the often misadventurous trip Neihardt took down the Missouri in 1908 – about a century after Lewis & Clark explored the area.
He built a large canoe for the trip, which leaked and had a motor that often wouldn’t start. They ran out of food and had to shoot a deer to eat. Eventually, they swapped boats and floated through the night to complete a 56-day trip from Fort Benton, Mont., to Sioux City, Iowa.
So, somehow it got in my brain that if there were no tall mountains to climb in Nebraska, and no towering waves to surf, I needed to paddle down the Missouri and maybe trace Neihardt’s steps.
So, as you read this I should be in a canoe, somewhere on the Missouri east of Fort Benton, probably baking in the sun and wondering where I left my mosquito repellent. It’s good for the soul to have an adventure once in a while, I figure, and I’d bet that we all have some bucket list trip to do.
For me, it will be the Missouri. Mosquitos be ready.
Paul Hammel has covered the Nebraska state government and the state for decades. Prior to his retirement, he was senior contributor with the Nebraska Examiner. He was previously with the Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha Sun. A native of Ralston, he loves traveling and writing about the state.
