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Hard on Those Oars or I'll Have You on a Cordelle Line!

By: LC200 staff

The morning of May 21 dawned gray and dismal, threatening to rain at any moment. Although it had been a long dry spell going back nearly three years with only occasional rains, today certainly wasn’t the day for rain. We had this float trip on the Missouri River planned for over a week. Mike Nottingham had his new keelboat ready to go and was itching to get it into the water. The only thing to do was hope the rain held off, and proceed with the planned outing. We weren’t scheduled to push off until 10 am so there was still time for the clouds to break up.

I busied myself with the details of getting ready for a day on the water. When I left the house for the hour-long drive to meet the rest of the passengers and crew, I thought I detected a small break in the clouds where the sun was trying to peek through. Although the wind had started to come up, it was warm but still overcast when I pulled up at the boat ramp in Fort Benton, Montana where we were to depart from. Mike and his crew of Greg Muick, San Smith, Doug McPeters and Laura Gillespe had been busy. The boat was already in the water with all the equipment neatly stowed ready for departure.

This was going to be a new experience for me. Keelboats used to be a very common sight on this part of the upper Missouri in the early 1800s, but there hadn’t been one tied up at the Fort Benton docks for over a hundred years. The more common vehicles for floating the river are canoes and rubber rafts. There was an air of excitement that comes from starting a new adventure as the passengers filed onto the boat and we pushed off. The General Ashley seemed to glide effortlessly over the water as the two oarsmen provided an anxious burst of energy that got us out into the current. We turned and headed downstream. The only thing we passengers needed to do was relax in our seats to enjoy the trip, leaving the work to the five-member crew.

I looked around me to see just exactly a keelboat was. I was pleased that we had a roof over our heads and walls around us. Not only did they provide protection from the wind and rain, but they would also shelter us from the glare of the hot sun. As I settled in for the ride I noticed the wind had picked up considerably, to about twenty five or thirty miles per hour, and the rain that had been threatening all morning was starting to fall. However, the four large entrance holes provided very adequate opportunity to see what was going on outside.

When Mike had invited me on this float trip I had been promised a journey through history. It didn’t take long for that journey to start. The crew was dressed in clothes they had made themselves; a combination of deerskin and cloth. They looked as if they had just stepped out of a time machine that had carried them forward two hundred years. The way they handled the boat, two oarsmen in front and one person on the sweep that served as a rudder in the rear, showed they were seasoned watermen. The crew skillfully maneuvered the thirty eight foot craft through the maze of ever changing sand bars that lay just below the surface of the water. With a five to seven miles per hour current running and a good wind at our backs, we fairly flew over the water. This boat was designed for the shallow waters of the upper Missouri; it would be tested before the day was over.

The threatening rain turned out to be a weak shower that finally gave up after we had been on the water about a half an hour. Most of the passengers had decided to ignore both the wind and the rain and were outside on the narrow walkway that runs on either side of the cabin. Everyone was totally absorbed in the quiet wonders of the river scenery that enveloped us.

Mike spoke quietly from his position at the rudder, instantly commanding full attention. He talked simply but with great knowledge that only comes with a lifetime of experience. As he told about his keelboat and gave a brief history of keelboating on this river, he could not hide his pride and contentment for what he was doing.

Keelboats were the primary means of hauling cargo on the upper Missouri from the early 1800s until they gave way to steamboats in the late 1850s. Originally they were not meant to haul passengers so were devoid of comforts. A crew of twenty to thirty men poled these fifty to seventy foot long boats slowly up the river hauling six to eight tons of cargo. At night they tied up to shore and each man found a place on the riverbank to sleep. The next morning the torturous monotony of poling upriver against the current resumed. When they finally reached their destination, they offloaded the supplies they had carried to the frontier and took on a load of furs and hides for the trip back downriver.

Keelboats were constructed with a cabin covering most the length of the boat, leaving only room at each end for oarsmen and a person to operate the rudder. An eighteen inch wide walkway on either side of the cabin runs the length of the boat. The cabin is about five feet tall from the walkway and about six feet wide. It would be filled with cargo leaving only the flat cabin top for the crew to lash their few belongings to.

The General William Ashley is a three quarter size replica of these early day keelboats. It has been modified to carry up to nine passengers in the cabin. The rudder has been replaced by a somewhat oversized oar, and the keel has been reduced to allow for running in shallow water. A few other modern day technologies have been hidden away that allows this boat to operate in as little as ten inches of water. Although our keelboat was equipped with a sail, as the original ones were, the winds were too strong for us to use it and still steer clear of the hidden sandbars. Because of the extended years of extremely low amounts of rain and snow, the river was less than half its normal depth. This made the sandbars even more difficult to avoid.

This float trip took us by some of the key historical locations of the early fur trade and settlement of central Montana. The sites included the Signal Point where a lookout was posted to watch for steamboats approaching Fort Benton. The place on Lewis and Clark’s Snow River (today called Shonkin Creek) where flat bottom boats and mackinaw boats were built to haul the tons of buffalo hides down river was pointed out. The three early day forts built for the fur trade were talked about and the locations shown. These were Fort McKenzie, Fort Fox and Livingston, and Fort F. A. Chadron. In fact, we ate our lunch at the site of Fort Fox and Livingston. The famous “cracondunez” and “grog springs” that Lewis and Clark wrote about were shown and talked about. And to round out the day’s tour we learned some of the geology of the area. Mike and his crew have obviously done a great deal of research on this area of the river. As they recounted the history, I could close my eyes and easily imagine myself back in time taking part in the history that was unfolding.

Our journey continued lazily on through the restful panorama of the Missouri River for nineteen miles. Although the wind stayed strong it was primarily at our backs as we twisted and turned our way along, avoiding sandbars and following the river bends. As we came around one particular river bend things suddenly started to happen. The wind blasted hard against the side of the keelboat driving us into the shallows near shore. Only a strong effort with long poles kept us from running aground. We crept along hugging the shoreline.

The wind intensified as we completed the turn so now it was blowing directly into our faces. The steep canyon walls acted like a wind tunnel making navigation around the sandbars virtually impossible. Even the slightest change in direction of the boat gave a surface area for the wind to slam into sending us into a ninety degree turn. At fifty miles per hour the wind was stronger that the river current and we were driven back upstream. The low-slung silhouette of the keelboat meant we had no worry of the boat capsizing; the wind would only slide it sideways across the water. It soon became a contest between the forces of nature and the skill of the crew to steer our tiny craft using only the power of three sturdy oarsman and a rudder. We could see in the distance the Bureau of Land Management campground that marked the end of our trip.

We grounded countless times on submerged sandbars or were driven into the riverbank by the howling winds. This last mile was proving to be impossible; the forces of nature won this time. We were once again slammed onto a sandbar near the south shore by a blast of wind. Mike knew when enough was enough. After nearly three quarters of an hour we had only gone a few hundred yards. He ordered his crew to the cordelle line. Four men dropped over the side into the middle of the upper Missouri River. The water came up to their knees. The cordelle line was quickly attached to the boat as the crew walked along the edge of the shore with the keelboat gliding behind. The last mile was done as countless thousands of miles were done in the early days of keelboating on this river.

After we tied up at the campground, congratulations were heartily given all around. Even the oarsmen who had worked so hard only to be foiled by nature were in high spirits. Everyone had thoroughly enjoyed the day. It certainly had been a journey through history.

Mike readily admits he prefers to stay on the water and not encounter such problems with the wind, but he found out his keelboat will take some pretty rough treatment. A check of the boat showed it was none the worse for the day’s experiences. Thanks to some of those hidden modern day technologies there were no scratches to show we had ever been on a sandbar. Although the wind mercilessly drove us into the shore there were no marks on the boat.

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