Around the Bend: Floating Down the Missouri River - Softcover

Lisa G. Dill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1496237315 ISBN 13: 9781496237316

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2026

Synopsis

The Missouri River is one of the most dangerous rivers in the United States—and one of the most economically important. Even as prolonged drought in the Midwest has imperiled urban drinking water and agricultural water supplies, parched regions in the basin far from the river have proposed piping water from the Missouri to alleviate their own water shortages.

In an attempt to better understand the river and its place in the American imagination, Lisa G. Dill set out with four of her mother's cousins on a forty-year-old pontoon boat on a modern voyage of discovery. The hope was to sail nearly 750 river miles from Sioux City, Iowa, to St. Louis, Missouri, a goal whose success was by no means assured, given the rickety state of the family vessel. From departure—a day late, because the motor wouldn't start—until she got off the boat, Dill bears witness to the river, its flora and fauna, the efforts to control it, and its history, along with the misadventures of a crew of "relative strangers" and the boat's tenuous viability on one of the world's most powerful rivers.

In Around the Bend Dill teases out the cultural and environmental history of the Missouri and urges readers to change the way they think about America's rivers and the landscapes through which they flow.

About this title

About the Author

Lisa G. Dill is an adjunct professor of creative and environmental writing at the University of Delaware.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496237315
• ISBN 13: 9781496237316
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 228