The trick to turning a wonderful experience into an educational enterprise is the outside reading you require, the discussions you facilitate, and the follow-up project selected. These transform experience into education. Groups can make the learning experience in canoes or rafts, with or without land support. While the Lewis and Clark journeys might be the primary focus of such trips, much wider subject areas are also relevant, for a trek down the Missouri is like making an archeological trench across an ancient tell. It turns up information on geology, biology, sociology, paleontology, along with the historical findings related to Westward expansion, the land rush and the immigrant s, native American issues, and, of course, the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Most trekkers underestimate the number, size and danger of the lakes.
The lakes are often more remote than the river sections, so count of being away from people, phones and supplies several days or more at a time. The Missouri is a swift river and helps you get down it. If you are near a ranch house you should ask, but much of the open range is far from the house and appears to be unsettled. As you move past the ranches into the farm land of Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri open shoreline campsites are harder to find, especially if the river is flooding. The tops of the levees often offer the only adequate open spots.