rivers – Montessori Muddle

tstorm-1834 — A line of canoes float past limestone bluffs in the midst of a thunderstorm.

The middle school class has been reading The Tempest for language arts this semester. However, I had not quite realized that it was a presentiment of for our outdoor education canoeing trip. And not metaphorically — the group worked amazingly well together — but there really was a massive storm while we were out paddling on the Current River.

sfcplot_sm_20120926 — Weather map from Wednesday, September 26th, 2012.

On Wednesday morning, two hours before dawn, a cold front heading south from Canada met a warm front coming north out of the Gulf. They met and stalled, pushing waves of clouds and thunderstorms over us from the west.

The first wave hit while we were in our tents; the second during breakfast. One student recounted that his highest point of the trip was when he tasted his first pancake that morning. His lowest point was when the pancake was promptly soaked with rain.

The third wave met us while we were in our canoes.

Searing lightning, flashing across the ridges of the valley. Blinding white. Immediate thunder, roaring straight through the ears, reaching in, taking the breath, grabbing at the soul. Drenching rain — cold and hard — a deluge. One of our guides described it, afterwards, as a religious experience. I think I know what she meant.

tstorm-1828 — Our guide (Ronnie) takes refuge under an overhang during the height of the downpour.

But the kids were awesome. Drenched, cold, and scared they paddled on. I was with a small group that was bringing up the rear. We were far enough behind that, for a long time, I could not tell how the students in the lead were responding. Especially when, at the height of the downpour, the lead group went around a bend in the river and out of our line of sight.

tstorm-1829 — And there was a loud cheer.

I knew they were with our lead guide (Leah), whose skill and competence had already been demonstrated earlier in the day when one of the canoes had flipped. Yet, one always worries about how kids will react in stressful situations. Following the current around a gravel eyot, however, I heard a loud cheer. There was the line of canoes, pulled over waiting for us. There were the students, soaked and perhaps a little bit relieved, but with no panic in the cacophony of voices.

When everyone had caught up, we continued on. Eventually, we hit a landing and called an end to the canoeing. Although the rain had stopped it was still cold. So, a few students decided that since the river water was so cold, if they waited in the water, when they came out they’d feel warm. “I’m willing to deceive my body,” they said.

While we waited for the bus, we talked a little about what we’d been through. Despite the stress — or perhaps because of — there was lots of laughter and a growing sense of camaraderie. I took the chance to highlight some of the quieter voices, those students who tend not to complain or be too excitable, and who took the time to appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of what they’d been through.

While I would not have planned it that way, the storm, our tempest, forged bonds of common experience that will resonate with this group for years to come.

tstorms-1824 — The first raindrops create tiny, concentric, waves that spread out and merge gently over space and time.

Notes

Infra-red satellite imagery from Wednesday, September 26th, 2012 shows the waves of thunderstorms passing over southern Missouri (yellow dot) very well.

The individual images come from NOAA’s GEOS archive: http://www.goes-arch.noaa.gov/

(From our Eminence Immersion)

trail-of-tears-outlook-panorama_b — View over the Mississippi River from the scenic outlook in the Trail of Tears State Park. The outlook juts out over rocky bluffs, which allows you to see the flood plain across the river.

Driving through Missouri last week, I stopped at the Trail of Tears State Park, which may be an excellent place to study the post-colonial history of Native Americans (perhaps as part of our civil rights discussions), and observed the Mississippi River and its flood plain before it becomes engorged at its confluence with the Ohio River.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act, which called for the removal of American Indians living east of the Mississippi River to relocate west of the Mississippi River. …

While some of the Cherokees left on their own, more than 16,000 were forced out against their will. In winter 1838-39, an endless procession of wagons, horsemen and people on foot traveled 800 miles west to Indian Territory. Others traveled by boat along river routes. Most of the Cherokee detachments made their way through Cape Girardeau County, home of Trail of Tears State Park. While there, the Indians endured brutal conditions; they dealt with rain, snow, freezing cold, hunger and disease. Floating ice stopped the attempted Mississippi River crossing, so the detachments had to set up camps on both sides of the river. It is estimated that over 4,000 Cherokees lost their lives on the march, nearly a fifth of the population.

–Missouri Department of Natural Resources: Remembering an American Tragedy

The small museum at the main park building does a very good job of trying to dispassionately tell the tragic story.

View Trail of Tears State Park, MO in a larger map

trail-of-tears-nature-walk — Taking a break on the Nature Walk behind the park's museum.

There’s a short, 1 km nature walk behind the building that was nice on a beautiful, sunny day in early spring. Warm, with the trees just barely beginning to bud you can get a feel for the ridge-and-valley topography of the park, which is in stark contrast to the flat floodplain of the Mississippi on the other side of the river. The park’s roads weave up and down the ridges, and I wished I’d had my bike with me.

riverside-campground-barge — Barge going downstream on the Mississippi River, past the river-side campground.

This early in the year (mid-March) most of the campgrounds in the interior of the park seem to be closed, but there is one down on a beach of the Mississippi River that was empty but open. This one has electrical hookups which is not a bad thing if you have the place all to yourself.

The scenic outlook is a wooden platform that juts out through the trees so you can see across the Mississippi to the flat floodplain and farmland beyond. Sitting on a cliff of sedimentary rock (it looked like limestone from a distance), the outlook is high enough that you can just make out the shapes of old meander bends and ox-bow lakes.

It’s a small park, probably worth a visit for the museum, and the outlook is nice, but probably not somewhere you’ll want to spend the night unless some of the upland campgrounds are open.

The museum’s focus on the relocation of the Cherokee would be a nice followup to the pre-Columbian focus of the Chucalissa Museum in Memphis.

cape_giradeau-river-wall — Cape Girardeau River Wall.

If you’re looking at river processes, you’ll probably also want to stop in Cape Giradeau, which boasts a fromidable wall to protect the downtown from the Mississippi River’s spring floods.