Riding the Mississippi River

 Our third day on the Expedition (August 5^th) was spent on the Mississippi River.  We were with our Heartland Research Group on the boat “Truth” along with sonar equipment (using a sound ping sent to the bottom and coming back as a picture) expert Don Cummings. He was onboard to take more pictures of the bottom of the river.  

This time we had Don Blum and his diver brother and cousin with us. We were hoping for a human eye’s view from our two divers exploring the river bottom near where the crossing could have occurred over 2,000 years ago. This crossing is recorded in Alma chapter 2 in the Book of Mormon during the war between the Lamanites and Nephites. Finding this crossing would connect the ancient account to the geography on digital maps.

 

Two thousand years ago, even 200 years ago, the Mississippi River was crossable by foot at the harvest time of the year. Sitting on that boat it was hard to believe anyone could cross by foot but we tried to visualize what could have happened from our vantage point.   Before the Keokuk Dam was built in 1913, the rapids on the Mississippi River (called the Des Moines Rapids) were 12 miles long but only three feet deep. Since 1913, the river had risen 18 feet and that area of the Keokuk bend was difficult to imagine anyone crossing by foot. Gone are the little islands shown on a late 1800 map. Gone are the areas which could have been crossed so long ago.

 From the boat outing the day before, Don Cummings along with Mike Baker found three key areas where this crossing could have occurred. The first is called Sandusky and with the sonar scans, it was the most likely place for our divers to explore. The nature of the limestone as a horizontal ledge at the Keokuk Gorge at Sandusky would have been much shallower before the dam was built.

We also had Don Blum with us who has over 40 years experience as an explosive expert for a good part of the Mississippi River.  Before he even got on the boat he talked about the dangers of diving down into the Mississippi.  According to many divers, the Mississippi river is the most dangerous body of water to scuba dive into. It’s murky with very limited visibility and has whirlpools that catch divers who can lose their sense of direction. Then there are the leftover grappling hooks from past fishing excursions which can grab onto arms or legs and not let go. There are also many large logs which are hard to see with 150 pound catfish, snapping turtles and snakes swimming around, all creating a most dangerous place to dive.

Then we learned about Don’s experience blasting rock on the Mississippi River and how the Keokuk Gorge area, which have layers of limestone and is one of the hardest rocks ever blasted in his 39 years of blasting. Once blasted into pieces, these boulders called “riprap” are used to protect the banks of many rivers from erosion. From the Missouri River to the Moline River in Illinois to the end of the Mississippi river in New Orleans, barges of riprap are sent down the river to be used as protection from disintegrating river banks.

Our time on the river was an adventure as the wind blew and the waves pushed against the boat. It was time for the divers to go down to see if they could find that limestone ridge. Once in the water, the visibility under the water was just too difficult to see anything.  Even with underwater headlights, it was too dangerous to go any farther.  It was a great disappointment to us all, but there was nothing we could do.

With this experience now behind us, our divers will get another chance to go again in the future. Using 3D sonar and more powerful lights, the chances will be better to pinpoint a location to search and find the original banks of the river.  We will find better visibility and another time of the year would be better with little waves and no wind.  We will look forward to another excursion to ride down the Mississippi River and find the ancient crossing.