Tag Archives: Arkansas river

Decisions On The Arkansas

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Lee and Bill Bailey on the Arkansas river

There is a special sign language used by voyagers on the rivers of the West. It is rich and varied with special nuances and concepts not always found in our spoken language. The subtleties hidden in the flow of the unspoken narrative can be infused with meaning and direction. It is used primarily when two people don’t want to speak to each other due to having discussions like this in the past. Here is a brief translation of what’s being said by the two individuals above.

The traveler on the left with her single arm outstretched and fingers pointed downstream is thought to be saying:

We should go down the water this way. We should not hit either bank. We must endeavor not to sink the boat by any foolish action for that would be bad. In case of imminent danger I will jump out and run alongside on the bank until I see whether you survive or not. If a poisonous snake should fall into the bottom of the boat do not shoot it or strike it with your hatchet. Watch carefully for rapids and call out loudly and clearly if they’re near. I will jump out and wait for you at the bottom of them. You bring the boat through. Do not spill anything. Do not light your pipe in the boat and set it on fire like you did last time. Do not get us lost…. The rest is lost in translation due to not understanding the subtle fingering used by the outstretched hand but this translation is thought to be fairly accurate.

Her companion is replying with a two handed gesture normally used by males which vaguely means:

Wait! What !?!

As stated above this is a language full of obscure meanings and concepts and can sometimes be misinterpreted by non-fluent speakers. However I believe most of the important thoughts were presented. Or of course they may be completely wrong. That’s happened before.

Down To The River In Boats

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The Journeyers carrying the Bull boat to the Arkansas river

One of the curses of river travel is portaging, or the art of unpacking the boat, then carrying the boat around unmanageable obstacles in the river, such as rapids, or log jams created by the last flood, to a place where you can put the boat back in the water again. Then going back to your last take-out point to retrieve your cargo and belongings and carry them to the new put-in place, repack the boat and set off again down stream towards your destination. If you’re lucky the next portage may be more than a half mile or so downstream. Sometimes it was less.

Unless you were on one of the big rivers, the mighty Mo, or the Mississippi, this was your fate, and your job. No long stretches of glamorous carefree floating, watching the tree line casually pass on by, or spending too much time watching the sandstone cliffs reaching for the sky while traveling through incredible red rock canyons, paddling just enough to maintain control of your vessel as you floated closer to your journeys end. That’s what you thought it would be like if you’d never traveled down one of the smaller rivers in the west. Prior travelers knew better.

This was not the fastest travel in the west. In fact given the amount of time you spent portaging, or laying out your gear on a rocky sand bar to dry after a collision with a submerged snag or some other hidden danger lying in wait to tear the bottom out of your boat, you probably could have put every thing on your back and humped it to where ever you were going quicker. If you had the strength that is. There’s a lot to reconsider if you think that it was a simple thing to simply go down to the river in boats and sail serenely to your destination. The West wasn’t always easy but it was always beautiful, exciting and adventuresome, the trials and tribulations of daily life not withstanding.

First Bend in The River

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Bill and Lee Bailey – First Bend in the River

Any adventure worth its salt starts with a single defining moment. In this case it is the first bend in the river at the beginning of an unknown journey, an untested trip down the Arkansas river. The sun is shining, the river is calm, its surface showing the first indications of white water, not huge rapids but still a change from it placid meandering into a focused point of energy. A rapid movement of water where it will soon sluice between large rocks and over hidden snags, drop several feet in elevation with startling rapidity into shallows that can tear the bottom out of the boat, all unknowns that can alter the course of this journey in an instance. But all those possibilities lie ahead, after all the unknown, that which makes it into an adventure, are still to come, around the first bend in the river.

Launching The Bull Boat

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Gabe Hanratty and Bruce Day Launching the Bull boat on the Arkansas river

Got to get it in the water if you want to go downstream. This is a big task for just two guys even if they are mountain men. But these are tough mountain men and they get it done with the minimum of salty language.

You can get a good look at the sturdy construction and workmanship of this vessel as it is being rolled over. It’s pretty remarkable especially considering that it was created using the most simple of hand tools, the hatchet and and awl and needle. The frame is made from varying sizes of tree limbs which have been bent and fashioned together with lacing of hide and sinew. Then covered with the hides of buffalo stretched over the frame and the seams where they join sealed with pitch from pine trees. Certainly a remarkable example of early boat building created out of the necessity needed to travel the waterways of the west.

Bull Boats On The Arkansas River

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Bruce Day – Gabe Hanratty in Bull Boat on the Arkansas river

Bull Boats, they’re all the rage on the Western rivers in the 1830’s- 40’s. Here’s one now loaded to the gunnels with everything necessary for a journey. Including but not limited to beaver traps, miscellaneous beaver trapping paraphernalia other than traps, supplies, sundries, ointments, unguents, bandages, fulminate of mercury tablets, food stuffs, a book on how to trap beaver and make money, another book of maps of unknown beaver rich tributaries, 12th ed., fire starting gear, tobacco, pipes to smoke tobacco with, extra things to repair the boat in case it gets ruin’t, pen and water proof ink to write help messages with, many small letter size pieces of parchment to write on, compass, hatchet, extra gunpowder in Arkansas river-proof containers, 200 hundred individually flaked flints for their rifles, two rifles, musket balls, lead to make musket balls, small cast iron pot to melt lead, little patches of cloth to separate ball from gunpowder in rifle, another hatchet in case head comes off first one, English to Comanche dictionary, complete foldable chart of American English to Indian sign language with full illustrations, pistols, very sharp knives, extra feathers for hats, sinew to sew feathers back on if loosened by turbulence, extra leather soles to put in moccasins in case of walking in rocky river, small needles to remove splinters from eye if not ducking in time, beeswax to maintain buffalo tails at either end of boat, good intentions, two excellent mountain men bull boat drivers and other things too numerous to mention. All in all a perfect set up to be a successful river runner.

Arkansas River Journey

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Journey’s beginning – Launching onto the Arkansas river

The Arkansas river is one of the major tributaries to the Mississippi river and as such has been a favorite river to travel on for fun or profit for years. More fun now than it was in the past when people used it to move goods by using small boats to carry freight from here to there so they wouldn’t have to lug it on their backs, or deal with cranky mules and other beasts of burden. A boatload of stuff gained in value when it didn’t take as much effort to get it from one place to another. It wasn’t unusual to see small wooden boats called pireaux, a form of flat bottomed canoe, floating down the river sunk nearly to the gunnels, filled with hides and other items of value. Captained by hearty but not necessary fearless captains, they traveled over placid stretches of the river, or if unlucky, through class 5 rapids when they didn’t make the cautious decision to portage around them. Traveling through class 5 rapids usually meant disaster in one form or another and was considered a mistake by those that tried it.

Another form of watercraft used on the river was a small usually two man boat called a bull boat. This was a more definite canoe shaped boat made out of buffalo hides stretched over a crude wooden frame constructed of tree parts of some type. A small log about 3-4 inches in diameter ran the length of the boat and served as its keel. Thinner branches were bent into ribs and placed perpendicular to the keel and held in place by a gunnel, which gave shape to the boat and allowed buffalo hides to be stretched over them to complete the craft. The seams between the hides were then sealed with pitch obtained from pine trees. This allowed a certain fragility to be introduced into the making of these boats as the seams were the weak link in its manufacture. However when luck prevailed these were sturdy and serviceable craft.

They were much more maneuverable than the other form of bull boats in use, which were round bowl shaped craft that were obviously designed by a committee. They were completely impossible to steer or direct in any manner whatsoever, due to not having a front or back, and being round were completely at the mercy of the wind and currents. They were used in an attempt to somehow cross a body of water while carrying people and their belongings. Normally the boatspeople in this type of bull boat wound up on the other side of the water they were attempting to cross merely by good fortune and helpful currents their constant and frantic paddling not withstanding. Their main contribution to river use was to keep the passengers less wet than if they had to wade or swim across the body of water obstructing their travel.

In the spirit ot times past the folks in the picture above are starting out with high hopes and gentle souls in the belief that they will have a delightful but uneventful trip down the Arkansas river. Given how life works we know the odds on this happening are roughly one in several hundred thousand. You have a better chance of finding a solid gold nugget the size of your ex-mother-in-laws head. One can say with certainty however, that they did have a trip. It was eventful, and their gentle souls were tested by the vagaries of river travel of which more will be written later. At this point in time the launch was successful and it looked as if it will be clear sailing ahead. May the winds be at their backs.

El Patron

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El Patron – Bents Fort – Ken James

Way back in pre-quarantine days you could go places and see things and do stuff. I’m talking about actually getting in your car and going to a place and hanging out with other folks without fear of getting some horrible disease that could kill you before you got back home. I’m only going on like this because I like talking about things nostalgic. You know, the good old days.

This event was the wonderful, not to mention beautiful, Christmas Festival held at Bent’s Old Fort located not too far from La Junta on the Arkansas river. It was on the mountain branch of the Santa Fe trail and was a trading post catering to the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes for buffalo robes. It soon became a headquarters for all the trappers and pilgrims using the Santa Fe trail.

My self-imposed assignment was to attend the Christmas Festival held at the fort a week or so before Christmas and photograph the historical reenactors, decorations, instructive demonstrations of needed skills of the era, and anything else that looked interesting, which turned out to be everything.

The historical reenactors who represented every notable character of the time were particularly interesting. They dressed the part, knew just about everything about the character that were portraying, and actually stayed as residents in the fort the entire time of the festival. They slept in the different areas of the fort and as the temperature at the time was 16 degrees that showed the kind of dedication these folks had. The fort does not have central heating.

One of the great things about this event is that they didn’t just focus on the really well known celebrities of the time but had people who represented the more common folks to give you a more accurate view of the every day workings of the fort and its inhabitants.

The fellow in the image above looked like El Patron an important Spanish title that normally meant he was a huge landowner somewhere nearby the fort, or perhaps he was simply stopping over for the holidays before heading back to his hacienda and family.

The event itself was an incredible achievement for the U.S. National Park service and if there is any justice in the world we may see it again.