A trip to the Treasure State

Al Batt, Nature's World

Published Saturday, July 18, 2009

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“Everything is nearly copacetic. I was mowing my lawn and whenever a jogger, walker, or biker came along, I waved them down and offered to let them push my mower for a while to get some real exercise. Not a one of them even thanked me! My boy Junior is over to help me fix the leaky roof over my kitchen.”

“When did you first notice the leak?” I wonder aloud.

“After it took me two hours to finish a bowl of soup. Junior is the family genius. He got his brains from his mother because I still have mine. He told me that I should reduce what he owes me from $500 to $100.”

“How would that help you?” I ask.

“He’s never going to pay me anyway, so that would cut my losses. Junior is so smart, mind readers charge him double the price. He was sharp early on. I remember when he was an ankle-biter riding with me in the truck. I saw some dead cats on the road ahead and I thought he was too young to learn about death. He asked me what that was on the road. I told him that some rocks had fallen from a truck. Junior said, ‘That’s probably what killed those cats.’”

Montana

I offered my pillow to another. It made her happy to receive a pillow the size of a marshmallow.

Travelers in first class caught up on their drinking while reading the Wall Street Journal while the huddling masses like me caught up on our praying while perusing a National Enquirer. I fly no class.

I flew into Great Falls, Mont. I was to speak at a couple of things and go on a canoe trip. It’s a long ways from here to there. Of course, that’s just an estimate.

Meriwether Lewis called the Great Falls “the sublimely grand spectacle…the grandest sight I ever beheld.” Paris Gibson, a Minneapolis entrepreneur, founded the city of Great Falls in 1884. The city was named after the 512-foot drop falls.

There are large areas of Montana that have no telephone poles, billboards, waterslides, or skyscrapers. The state has little pollution and low humidity leading to fewer clouds, less haze, and a clear horizon. You see more sky. It is the land of the big sky. In “Travels With Charlie,” John Steinbeck wrote, “Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” Montana is the Treasure State — named for buried treasure like gold, silver, and copper. Other nicknames include “Land of Shining Mountains,” “Big Sky Country,” and “Last Best Place.” The average square mile of Montana contains 1.4 elk, 1.4 pronghorn, 3.3 deer and six people.

The river I canoed was the Missouri River. It is a waterway used by the Lewis and Clark expedition — this country’s great epic adventure.

I had prepared for the trip. Each night, I practiced yelling, “Help, I’m lost!” I was in the pink. My blues were in the laundry.

I was well equipped for the journey. While the Swiss Army knife has been popular for years, I carried the unheralded Swiss Navy knife. Its single blade functions as a tiny canoe paddle.

I had insect spray. I didn’t use it, but I had it ready. Lewis and Clark complained of mosquitoes and prickly pear cactus. I expected the mosquitoes to be thick enough to cast a shadow, but I didn’t have to call in the Department of Homeland Security.

I didn’t even brush any mosquitoes off me. They weren’t that dusty. I had lip balm in case I encountered a rattlesnake with chapped lips.

I love canoeing even though I am a bad canoeist. I don’t like to get wet in a river. I’m Lutheran, not Baptist. I have to admit that I tipped the canoe three times. Then I finally got it into the water. When I got into the canoe, I was grace personified. Unfortunately, I sat on my eyeglasses. That would have been bad enough, but I was wearing them at the time. That gave me the opportunity to squint like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western. Missing my glasses, I careened my canoe off icebergs. OK, I might be exaggerating a little. It wasn’t really my canoe. I think Einstein’s Theory of Relativity might have come into play, but because I have no clue as to what it is, I can’t say for sure.

Each night, I built a hat fire — one I could put out with my hat. Cowboy hats are measured by the amount of water they will hold. They were out of 10-gallon hats, so I wore a 7- and a 3-gallon hat.

I slept in a tent and each morning, I was surprised that the river was where I had left it. Each night, I eased myself down upon as few rocks as possible.

As I paddled the Missouri, I was never beyond the song of the western meadowlark. Lewis and Clark wrote about the western meadowlark in 1805 and it was chosen Montana’s state bird in 1931.

I saw many pronghorns. They are called antelope, but they are not. It’s like bait being called sushi. Pronghorn can sprint up to 60 mph and sustain 30 mph for miles.

The male common nighthawk has a dramatic booming display used during the breeding season. He flies at a moderate height and then dives straight toward the ground. Somewhere before he’d hit the ground, he turns upward. At the bottom of the dive, he flexes his wings downward and the air rushing through his wingtips makes a deep booming sound. The dives are directed at females, young nighthawks, intruders, and, as I have found, even a man in a canoe.

I floated for hour after hour, under endless sky, past white cliffs as majestic in real life as they were in my dreams. I saw countless things that deserved to be on postcards.

After a few days without a shower, I had assumed the identity of compost and it was time to go back to work.

There was still so much to see. Would I go back to Montana? In a heartbeat. For more information on the area, contact Russell Country at 1-800-527-5348.

Pelican Breeze

  Please join me as I host tours on the Pelican Breeze as it cruises beautiful Albert Lea Lake on July 19 and Aug. 16 at 4 p.m. Please call 507-383-2630 to make a reservation. I’d appreciate your company.

Thanks for stopping by

“In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” — Paul Harvey

“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.” — Eric Hoffer

DO GOOD.

Al Batt of Hartland is a member of the Albert Lea Audubon Society. E-mail him at SnoEowl@aol.com.

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