NATIONAL PARK SERVICE A Proposed Lewis and Clark National Wilderness Waterway

The great rivers of the world hold a special top place in the history of nations, even in the very look and character of their lands. And so it is with the Missouri, longest river in the United States: 2,466 miles, it flows from Three Forks in Montana to join the Mississippi near St. Louis, as its mightiest tributary--route of the Indian, fur trappers and explorer, the steamboat, gold rush and the settler. Of all its stories, the Lewis and Clark Expedition perhaps best caught the public's fancy and found a firm niche in history. Through the exploits of these two, the Missouri is known to all.

For thousands of years the Missouri has carved and molded the land answering only to the laws of nature. So it was until modern man settled the land, broke the sod, built cities and factories, and set out to harness and tame this giant with dam and levee, piling and revetment. And while these public works surely have borne fruit, they have just as surely lost us the great free-flowing stream itself throughout most of its river course.

So there was special significance in the request of the late Senator Murray in the spring of 1960, that the National Park Service study a wild section of this river between Fort Benton and the upper reaches of Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana. It came at a time when the Service, under MISSION 66, was giving increased attention to its long-range plans for the National Park System--studying, by category, voids which should perhaps be filled.

During the summer of 1960 only a brief investigation was possible. It brought to light a variety of interesting values and led to more detailed studies the following season. In these, representatives of the National Park Service were joined by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Montana Department of Fish and Game.

This report presents the results of those field investigations and of subsequent related study.

"The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, and such principal stream of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce." -- President Thomas Jefferson to Captain Meriwether Lewis - June 20, 1803