River Relief
May 4, 2024
This version of the newsletter has some corrections: In the original version, I managed to misspell everyone’s name. OK. John Potts was spelled correctly, but how do you misspell John Potts? Also, with the help of Steve Schnarr, I identified the last resting place of John Colter as New Haven, Missouri, so I must have met a man with a dog named Colter on the trail near Treloar.
For the last 3 or 4 days, my weather apps have been screaming about potential or actual flooding, or potential or actual thunderstorms. It’s been stop and go—mostly stop. I spent an extra day at Jefferson City to shelter from one thunderstorm. The Missouri River, I’m told, crested near 21 feet—not high enough to flood the trail, but close. The storms dropped branches and trees, and in one bad spot between Tebbets and and Jeff City, washed out the trail, making it treacherous riding. I learned to just walk the bad parts. A park ranger explained that the trail served as a levee of sorts, preventing rainwater from draining onto the farmland, but with the extra rain filling the creeks, and the saturated soil on the trail, something had to give. I skirted 8 inch drop-offs and soft sand at several placed on that one section.
Strangely, the experience just added to the sense that there’s something magical about the river. As Steve Schnarr says in the video below, the river’s power can make a person feel small, but that sense of smallness—that sense of humility— can heal.
I can’t quite pin down the vibe I get from the river. Its history is much older than just the Lewis and Clark expedition, but let’s start there. The State of Missouri does a fantastic job of pointing out where Lewis and Clark camped on their historic journey, but they also point out how illusory those markings are. Where Pierced Rock (Roche Percée) now stands (invisible to me, shrouded in greenery) a creek converged with the Missouri. Now neither that creek or the River meet at that exact spot. The river has meandered a mile east (I think), and the creek a mile northeast on the trail.
On the Katy Trail near Treloar, I met a man with a dog named Colter, after the John Colter, who, nearing home with the Lewis and Clark expedition, asked permission to go back West. A strange request, I would think, after two years of hardship on the trek. But Colter was a strange man.
The man with a dog named Colter told me where John Colter was buried.
Sort of.
He pointed in the direction of New Haven, Mo. “Over there,” he said. I asked if I could get there from here. He said no. I’d have to cross the river either at Jefferson City or Hermann. But somewhere over there, Coulter’s body was, it is said, laid out on a table at a wake in his cabin, and left, as a gesture of respect, to be buried by time.
Colter is most famous for “Colter’s Run.” He got into a jam with the Blackfeet Indians. The trading posts Colter was setting up really weren’t in the Blackfeet’s interest, who were more closely aligned with the British than the Americans. There was a tense standoff. John Potts was with Colter, but across a stream or river. I don’t know which. Colter apparently shouted at Potts, “Don’t shoot.” John Potts shot anyway. That cost Potts his life. It cost Colter his dignity.
Colter was stripped naked, then given a head start for a chase. He showed up sunburned and tender-footed at a trading post 200 miles away.
Eventually, he ended up here— if here can mean somewhere around here. If here can mean over the river somewhere—in New Haven, Missouri. He took the payment he earned from the Lewis and Clark expedition, which included a parcel of land. It was on that land that the wake was held. It was on that land that he was left on a table in a rustic cabin, which has since disappeared.
Anyway, we were talking about the Missouri River. I can’t pin it down, but the river has a certain feeling, a certain vibe. River towns are at once rustic and cosmopolitan. They are tied to a place, but they are nodes of transiency. They are in awe of the power of the river, but they are also depend on the hubris of human engineering to tame and control it.
Friday night, I camped at Coopers Landing, near Easley. Coopers Landing has been around for decades: an outdoor music venue, a boat launch, and a campground. The nonprofit “River Relief” often visits here, leading educational, therapeutic, and clean-up opportunities for all ages. They were here Friday, and that’s how I met Steve Schnarr and Kristen Schulte. They had just finished leading a boat trip on the river with veterans.
They’ve been at this for years. Naturally, they were much more articulate about the special vibe of the river. I hope you’ll watch:
You can find out more about River Relief—or make a contribution to support their efforts here