Proceeding On, Downriver!

Journal 2005 10 15
Proceeding On, Downriver!

“…for the first time for three weeks past I had a good dinner of Blue wing Teel…” Captain Clark remarks on his dinner of the night before. Have you noticed the honking in the sky as flocks of geese take flight south in their V formations? It was no different two-hundred years ago. The Captains must have loosened their restriction against shooting fowl for meals in light of no game, a distrust of dried salmon and the increasing fare of dog.

The Corps sets out this morning to a cool wind coming upriver from the SW and frost on the ground. Overall, Clark notes the morning as “far” as in fair. They travel twenty miles through many rapids. Lewis walked, as is his preference, on the prairie and sees more mountains about sixty miles west. Today’s Blue Mountains of SE Washington and NE Oregon. On many of the difficult rapids the non-swimmers carry rifles and powder on land while the rivermen guide the canoes through the difficult rapids. Captain Clark noted two days ago that “We should make more portages if the Season was not So far advanced and time precious with us.” He also noted that the rapids would be even more dangerous if the water were higher as it would have been earlier in the season.

Much of the gear is wet from several swampings during today’s work. The men recognize they are near the confluence of the Snake River into the Columbia. The Captains realize that they will spend whatever time needed to take celestial readings to mark the spot accurately on the map. Their wet goods will dry during that time.

Once again these rivermen show their absolute bravery and toughness when a canoe comes to rest on a rock in the middle of the river. The men get out of the canoe, stand on the rock and hold it for an hour as the load is transferred to two other canoes. Can you imagine a modern day river guide instructing you to get out of the boat and stand on the rock in the middle of the rapid? We’d all want a refund if we made it safely to shore! This maneuver must have required skills similar to today’s air tankers topping off the fuel tanks of other aircraft in flight. These guys were good.

Proceeding on. Downriver. Downriver continues to present a different challenge. Have you ever had the brakes fail on your car while you were going downhill? I have. I’m grateful for an emergency brake that allowed me to bring the car back under control and stop. Otherwise, I might not be here to recount this lesson in gravity and momentum.

Gravity and the river current provided momentum that propelled the men faster than was safe. Restraining and harnessing that power was more difficult that grinding against the current up the Mighty Missouri. I would always rather travel uphill than down. Errors are magnified going down because everything goes faster as you fall.

We all sing and pray that “the Holy Spirit would come and move in power” and that God would “let the river flow.” I bet that these experienced rivermen would not be so anxious to sing this song. They knew the power of the river. Do we? Do we, really? It is right that we should petition the Lord of the River of Life to “let it flow.” It is even more right that when He answers our entreaties and looses a flood that we not be fearful of the momentum created by the speed the gravity of His blessing produces all around us.

When He looses the floodgates as we frequently cry out for Him to, will we then look for the first thing to grab hold of and pull ourselves to the safety of dry land? Or will we get in the vessel of His design and run the rapids confident that He sent the flood to speed us along to the place He desires for us to proceed on to?