Early Boats on the Missouri

Early Boats on the Missouri. . , One of the earliest forms of Missouri River transportation was the bull boat. Used primarily by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes, bull boats served as the main watercraft for natives living along the river banks. These boats were both built and navigated by women. They were built using green willow poles, bent into a circular form, and reinforced with willow ribs. , A buffalo bull hide, stretched over the frame with the fur facing out, completed the boat. The buffalo's tail was not removed from the hide; it indicated the stern or back of the boat. Bull boats varied in size from a one-person boat made with a single hide to a craft that could carry as many as eight people, constructed with several hides. , Keelboats measured between 50 to 70 feet in length, and took their name from the keel that ran along the bottom of the structure. They typically featured a cabin and a sail and traveled both up and down the river, hauling several tons of cargo. Going upstream, a keelboat crew might use wind power, oars, or long poles to push the boat forward. When part of the crew pulled the boat using a tow-line or cordelle, the technique was known as cordelling. A combination of these methods allowed boats to travel fifteen miles a day going upriver. A keelboat was used on the first leg of the Corps of Discovery's voyage up the Missouri in 1804; it returned to St. Louis the following year. , Pirogues were flat-bottomed canoes, built to better withstand the snags and sandbars of the Missouri River. The term also referred to "dugout" canoes, made from carving the wood out from a cut tree trunk to create a canoe-like boat. All wooden vessels were coated with a type of water-repellant tar, and some boats were fabricated from numerous pieces of wood and the seams were caulked to make them watertight.