Around the Bend (Paperback)

Paperback. The Missouri River is one of the most dangerous rivers in the United Statesand 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 departurea day late, because the motor wouldn't startuntil 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. Lisa G. Dill bears witness to one of the world's most powerful rivers as she and a crew of four cousins pilot a rickety pontoon boat down the Missouri on a modern voyage of discovery. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…