Canoeing in the Mountains

I’ve been reading Tod Bolsinger’s 2015 book on church leadership in the modern world. Bolsinger was a successful Presbyterian pastor in California who was hired by Fuller Theological Seminary in 2014 as vice president for vocation and formation. His book was, in part, a response to his new position, but he was already recognized as a leader of church retreats and leadership development before he began his work at Fuller Seminary. It is fairly common for someone who achieves success in one area of the church to be lifted up as an example. We all can learn from the success of others.

But it is also true that not every success in one place can translate into success in another. When I was a pastor in Rural North Dakota during the farm crisis of the 1980’s the “experts” in church growth all had in common the simple fact that they served churches in communities where the population was growing. I was serving in an area where the population was declining. Bolsinger has served two congregations in his career, one as associate pastor, another as senior pastor. He has spent his entire career in Southern California. That doesn’t mean that his ideas and leadership don’t apply in South Dakota. It just means that all leadership must be adapted to specific circumstances.

I admit that one of the things that attracted me to Bolsinger’s book is its title: Canoeing in the Mountains. As one who enjoys and has some experience canoeing in the mountains, I thought that the analogy might be a good one for me. Bolsinger, of course, isn’t a canoeist. He isn’t even a mountaineer. He uses what he knows about the Lewis and Clark expedition as an analogy for going into uncharted territory. The analogy works and his ideas are relevant. For certain readers, however, the analogy can get in the way of his ideas. I’m one of those readers.

So, rather than writing about Bolsinger or his book about church leadership, I want to write a bit about the Lewis and Clark expedition. During the ten years when we lived in Idaho, we regularly visited family in Montana, where I grew up. My home town received its name from Lewis during the return to Missouri. After moving to South Dakota our son studied at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, so I’ve driven over the continental divide and the subsequent mountain passes in the northwest many times. For a number of years I attempted to cross the border between Idaho and Montana in as many of the drivable passes as possible.

The Lemhi Pass is a dramatic route. The road is dirt and gravel and passable only in the summer months. It is labeled for off road capable vehicles only, but we pulled the pass with our Mitsubishi Montero pulling our tent camper without a problem. The trailer had been lifted and larger tires installed to increase ground clearance. The top of the pass is gorgeous and it is one of the places where you have the sense of standing on a ridge that is a definite divide. The ground slopes dramatically downward on both sides of the pass. Summer in the high country is akin to spring in other parts of the world, with lots of flowers and warm days and cool nights.

Bolsinger refers to Lewis standing on top of the Lemhi Pass repeatedly as a moment of insight, when he realized that there was no water route to the west coast and that the road ahead was vastly different than the route they had come. I think his information about the Corps of Discovery comes mostly from Stephen Ambrose’s 2013 book, Undaunted Courage. The book was widely popular and spins a good yarn, but has been criticized for exaggeration and a lack of historical accuracy. It is clear that Bolsinger has never stood on the top of Lemhi Pass, and doesn’t know what it takes to get from Great Falls to Lemhi Pass if your principal mode of transport to Great Falls was a river keelboat, The Corps of Discovery didn’t use canoes in their travel, except for he crude dugout boats employed on the return journey.

Lemhi Pass isn’t the continental divide, though it is dramatic enough to have fooled the surveyors who mapped the boundary between Montana and Idaho for quite a while. And Lemhi Pass isn’t where the Corps of Discovery finally crossed into what is now Idaho. Had they crossed there, they would have descended into the Salmon River valley, the area known as the River of No Return Wilderness. Instead, they went back into the Bitterroot Valley and journeyed north to a route closer to where Interstate 90 crosses northern Idaho.

These days you can take a modern whitewater canoe, something like my Recon, and if you have enough skill and experience, float the Salmon through the wilderness to the Snake where it broadens before emptying into the Columbia and follow the Columbia to the ocean, portaging around several dams. Lewis and Clark didn’t have the boats or the experience to handle the whitewater.

Ambrose, and Bolsinger don’t give adequate credit to the fact that in fact Lewis and Clark weren’t traveling into unknown territory. It was just territory that wasn’t known to them - or to others of European descent. The Shoshoni and New Perce knew the way across the mountains and they had regular contact with the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Lakota to the East and the Coastal tribes to the west. They also had the trails and technologies to survive and travel in the mountains. The northern passes over the continental divide are, especially on the east faces rather gentle and there are some very low passes through the mountains. The Columbia provides the easiest way to get through the Cascades. There are some rugged mountains west of the divide.

Lewis and Clark were in over their heads long before they got to the mountains, however. Had it not been for the assistance of the Mandan people, they probably would not have survived the winter in North Dakota. It was through their associations with the Mandan that they were able to use indigenous guides for the rest of their trip. It was a lot more challenging than following a river.

Bolsinger’s analogy, like all analogies, is imperfect. I works best when one doesn’t examine too much detail. I doubt if he has the skill to really canoe in the mountains, so it would be best to take him on a raft trip, where capsize is less likely. Still, I think I could teach him at least as much about canoeing in the mountains as he can teach me about church leadership in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Copyright (c) 2019 by Ted E. Huffman. I wrote this. If you would like to share it, please direct your friends to my web site. If you'd like permission to copy, please send me an email. Thanks!