An Educational Day

Yesterday I learned a lot. Jon, Rebecca, Asher, & I went to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls. When we got inside, we asked the man collecting entrance fees what an "interpretive center" was. He said that it was a self-guided museum, but more interactive, and that there would be things we could play with, touch, and smell. We joked that we would be walking out of there with homemade clay jars and freshly tanned buffalo skins. While the museum ended up not being quite as interactive as this, it was still really awesome.



Lewis & Clark actually traveled through Great Falls on their journey through the Louisiana Purchase. In fact, they had to go "off roading" here due to several waterfalls on the Missouri River that made it impossible to continue traveling upstream on their way west. We also learned that bison bladders were used as the Nalgene bottle of yesteryear. Gross, but very educational all the same.

From the museum, we walked on the River Edge trail to the Giant Spring. This is a natural spring that bubbles up out of the ground all year long. We read that it takes 50 years for snow melting on a nearby mountain range to travel underground to the spring. Can you imagine? Also, the water emerges at a consistent 54 degrees year round. The water from the spring flows into the Roe River, which then flows right into the Missouri River. The Roe River is the shortest river in the whole world.

Adjacent to the Giant Spring was the Giant Spring Trout Hatchery. This one is pretty self explanatory. When the fish spawn (lay eggs) they are collected, fertilized, and brought to the hatchery to grow. The fry (baby fish...do you think this is where the saying "small fry" came from?) progress to various tanks depending on how big they are. When the fish are about 6 inches long, they are transported to various bodies of water all throughout the state. In any of the given tanks, there are literally THOUSANDS of fish swimming around. There is a display pond outside the hatchery where very large fish are there for you to look at and feed for a nickel. These trout were at least two feet long. That's a lot of fish sticks.