River History
A source of life for the people, plants, and animals of the plains. The river provided essential transportation of food, trade goods and fuel up and down the river long before Europeans first visited. All three of the Plains Village Indian Tribes, Sahnish (Arikara), Hidatsa, and Mandan, lived along the Missouri River.

River Science
Water is one essential needed by all living organisms on the planet. It gives life to 1000 year old seeds and a finite number of these miraculous molecules travel around the globe changing form friom solid to gas and gas to liquid as ice, rivers, glaciers, snow, lakes, streams and sloughs. The water of the Missouri River has brought life to the bullberry, cottonwoods, cedars and willow, and sustained the living creatures as it has carved its path winding for centuries through the heart of the Dakotas.