On the trail of Lewis, Clark, Custer, McCall ....

The opportunities are few and far between these days, so I took advantage of a recent chance to drop a canoe into the Missouri River. My "weather-luck" was with me. The day was bright and sunny and mild. The excursion took me by these Dakota cliffs where, not too many years ago, I frequently stood atop practicing pistol- and rifle-craft at targets hurled into the flowing waters .... nothing plastic, I might add.

The region abounds in history. Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark and their compatriots went past these cliffs both ascending and descending the Missouri on their 1804-1806 expedition of discovery. Bluffs on the opposite side of the river, now Nebraska, were the site of a "meet and greet" for the expedition with local Indian tribes, and an island, now submerged since the building of dams, was a campsite for a few days.

George Armstrong Custer, his wife, Elizabeth, and troopers of the Seventh United States Army Cavalry endured a ferocious blizzard here on April 14, 1874, while en route to Fort Abraham Lincoln in what is now North Dakota. The troopers made an encampment and the Custers stayed nearby in a rented, half-finished cabin which "Libbie" described in her memoirs:

"The place was equal to a palace to me. There was no plastering, and the house seemed hardly weather-proof. It had a floor, however, and an upper story divided off by beams; over these Mary (a servant) and I stretched blankets and shawls and so made two rooms.

"It did not take long to settle our few things, and when wood and water were brought from a distance, we were quite ready for house-keeping, except that we lacked a stove and some supplies."

John "Crooked Nose Jack" McCall, the man who murdered James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, in 1876 was tried, hanged and buried in an unmarked grave here less than a year after the murder. There is some dispute and a few myths surrounding the execution and burial, but there is no doubt he was hung by the neck until dead on March 1, 1877.

More recently, fighter pilots practiced strafing runs here during the early years of World War II, and it is not uncommon to find a .50-caliber round in the ground.

By the way, I did a bit of shooting and a bit of swimming, too ....

Yep .... a canoe on a historic river with beautiful weather in a place where the past flourishes and mingles with the present is a perfect way to spend a day .... wish you would have been there, baby ....