Missouri River Odyssey
North of Omaha, the Missouri River goes stunningly wild. Here are more than two dozen ways to experience this region's beauty and character.
Meandering toward Nebraska
From Gavins Point Dam in Yankton, South Dakota, to Ponca State Park in Nebraska, paddlers canoe a section of the Missouri River that still feels wild. For 59 meandering miles, the stream flows free of dams and channels, broad and lazy.
At Ponca State Park, bluff-top Three State Overlook provides a view that includes parts of Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska -- and the river as it looked to the explorers. Nearly 200 feet below, the river ambles in from the northwest shallow, milk-colored, sinuously irregular -- an unruly, half-mile-wide stream punctuated by broad sandbars and weathered snags.
Suddenly, it narrows by half, takes on the regular features of a canal, and the current accelerates. The overlook surveys one of the last untamed stretches of the Missouri.
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