Great Falls, Montana - August 5-8

We arrived in Great Falls, Montana early afternoon on Friday, August 5 and were seated in our front row seats at the rodeo a little before 7:00. Fortunately, we happen to be seated next to Trevor Yurchak and his wife Tamara from Athabacus, Alberta. Trevor had a brief career as a professional bull rider, and he and Tamara were a font of information, filling us in on the technicalities of each event. It was like having your own personal commentator and color person.

The next day we visited the Lewis and Clark Historic Trail Interpretive Center, a project of the Lewis and Clark Foundation. Once again, we were anticipating a visit of 1-2 hours and ended up spending the better part of the day, thanks to a facility that vividly tracks the Corps of Discovery’s search for a waterborne northwest package from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The Center is situated high on a bluff above the Missouri River just downstream from the last of a series of five falls that required the Corps to endure an 18 mile, 30-day portage. The exhibits lead you chronologically througheach of the segments of the Corps’ journey. Along the way, you become a member of the Expedition, experiencing the awe of discovery, the tedium of dreary winter days in a wilderness camp, and the harshness and difficulty of moving man and equipment across a country that had never been traversed by an organized group of whites. All of this is augmented by a talented and knowledgeable group of volunteers who give presentations on various aspects of the Expedition, certain to expand and, more likely, challenge your grammar school U.S. history.

At a short walk from the Interpretive Center, alongside of the great Missouri River, one finds Giant Springs. These springs erupt 156 million gallons of snowmelt a day, which have been filtered for 2900 years through Madison Limestone before reemerging! They are the source of the very short Roe River which then feeds the Great Missouri.

Giant Springs, near Interpretive Center

Roe River, U.S. Shortest River (240')

Fort Benton Trading Post

Fort Benton, 40 miles downstream (by road) from the interpretive center, offers another view of our forefathers’ emigration west-- some 40-50 years after Lewis and Clark had made that emigration possible. Called Fort Benton from its inception, it was actually a trading post until taken over by the military in the late 1860s, by which time the decline of the beaver, and then the buffalo, had essentially eliminated the fur trade. The River & Plains Society, a private group, has faithfully restored much of the old post and conducts tours depicting the thriving commercial relationship between the white factors that ran the post and the Blackfeet tribe that provided the furs. Fort Benton owed its importance as a trading center to the fact that it was the furthest point upstream that could be negotiated by the steamboat. When the railroad displaced the steamship, Fort Benton suffered an enormous economic decline, briefly halted in the early 1870s, when it became the supply center for the notorious and lawless whisky trade into Canada along the Whoop Up trail.

On our last day in Great Falls, we took advantage of River’s Edge Trail, a cycle path. It goes through the city – past dog parks, skate board complexes, tennis courts, water parks (all run by the city) and then onto historical sites, Missouri river dams, and lovely countryside. All in all, a valuable resource for the inhabitants of Great Falls as well as for those of us visiting.



Wheat Field on the Road to Fort Benton



Buffalo Hide Boat Ft. Benton

Moccasin Bead Work Ft. Benton