Passage of Discovery: The American Rivers Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark - Softcover

Botkin, Daniel B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0399525106 ISBN 13: 9780399525100

Publisher: Tarcherperigree, 1999

Synopsis

The author of Our Natural History retraces the 1804-1806 Missouri River passage of Lewis and Clark, guiding readers through nearly fifty sites of historical and environmental importance from St. Louis to Montana. Original.

About this title

From the Author

Review of "Passage of Discovery" from The Riverfront Times
Reviewed by Eddie Silva, The Riverfront Times, St. Louis, July 14-20, 1999. "Ecologist Daniel Botkin has written a unique hybrid of a book that maps one of the greatest American rivers and its constantly changing relationship to the people who have lived adjacent to it. Part history, part environmental study, part travel guide, Passage of Discovery: The American Rivers Guide to the Missouri River of Lewis and Clark is especially noteworthy to those living in the state whose name comes from that river. Following Lewis and Clark's journey up the Missouri River from St. Louis to Montana, the author juxtaposes reflections of the land the explorers saw, as recorded in journals at the beginning of the 19th century, with what is there now, at the end of the 20th. Given that the Missouri was recently designated the second-most- endangered river in America (after the Snake), Passage of Discovery is an unexpectedly positive work. Botkin is in no way sanguine about the current condition of the Missouri River, but he maintains that one of the river's great qualities is its resilience. . . Botkin reports on the various ways the Missouri is being restored — not to the pristine character that the Corps of Discovery traveled but to a condition that is healthier and more beneficial to a variety of interests. These practices are sometimes as simple as allowing snag — dead trees that lie in the river — to remain in side channels and backwaters to provide healthy fish habitat. . . Botkin's book is about the control of nature, but with a light touch. "'Nature is dynamic rather than static,'" he says over coffee at the Adam's Mark [Hotel in St. Louis]. "We tend to look at environmental issues as if there were a truth when it is much more a design issue — and it is good to have more than one design." "Botkin discusses how the two legendary commanders offer models of leadership and environmental sensitivity that deserve study and emulation today." "The two men were "very able, great planners but at the same time were out there talking about the sublime and the beautiful." "Passage of Discovery is a guide for travelers to follow on comfortable tours along interstates and country roads, approximating the Lewis and Clark route by automobile, mercifully, rather than through macho reenactment by canoe against the Missouri's might current. . . . As fantastic and perilous as the expedition was, Botkin refers less to extraordinary deeds than to the remarkable equilibrium of temperament Meriwether Lewis and William Clark exemplified, bringing to their endeavors the combined qualities of "spirit and understanding."

Edition details

• Publisher: Tarcherperigree
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399525106
• ISBN 13: 9780399525100
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 247