Legacy Magazine

by Betty Mulcahy

Photo by Randy Mays

The chugging of a steam engine and the whistle of a steamboat lure visitors to a glance at the past, when river travel helped settle the West while also impacting the environment and wildlife habitats. Many national wildlife refuges protect wildlife and habitat along rivers, but one harbors cargo retrieved from the Bertrand, a riverboat that didn’t survive the treacherous journey hauling supplies up the Missouri River in the mid-1800s.

After striking a submerged log 20 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska, on April 1, 1865, the steamboat Bertrand sank into the Missouri River and settled to the muddy bottom, taking with it a rumored fortune in whiskey, gold, and flasks of mercury. Like many other riverboats at that time, the Bertrand left St. Louis, Missouri, loaded with cargo to supply Montana goldfields. Other riverboats failed to complete their journeys as well, but the Bertrand was resurrected in 1968, when Sam Corbino and Jesse Pursell located and salvaged its remains on DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge.

For treasure hunters, cargo retrieved from this wreck proved disappointing. Divers in 1865 removed the great valuables folklore had described, leaving common goods of little interest to those seeking fortunes. Required to relinquish artifacts located on government property, the salvagers surrendered Bertrand’s cargo to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be preserved in an exhibit at the refuge.

While treasure eluded its hunters, real treasure proved to be the necessities that reveal life in the gold camps. Tools, clothing, food, and other equipment provide researchers a glimpse into 19th-century life. But unexpected luxuries also recovered from the Bertrand hint at extravagance not usually associated with rigorous frontier living. Who could have guessed that prospectors and settlers would crave and demand olive oil, mustard, French champagne, bottles of cherries and peaches, or new-fangled cans of lemonade and instant coffee? And few would suspect that the variety of clothing in its cargo included business suits and fancy jackets, not merely work clothes.

At DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, a short film recounts the excitement of the discovery and excavation that produced over 500,000 artifacts. Then, as if stepping across the deck of the boat, visitors walk over plank flooring toward the exhibit to enter the past. They pause to allow their eyes to adjust to dim lighting that not only protects the collection, but also reflects upon artifacts that survived entombed in mud for over 100 years.

A large model of the Bertrand introduces the display. Progressing through the exhibit, visitors experience a moment frozen in time as they view recovered objects through a protective glass wall. Of the many shovels, shoes, and other items that include even a child’s chalkboard, perhaps the glass bottles capture the most attention. Collectors gasp at the elaborate designs on these once commonplace containers. The variety of sizes and shapes awe many who long to possess such antiques.

But at what expense to wildlife did riverboats and expansion of the West contribute? Workmen felled trees to fuel steamboats, boat wrecks fouled the water, and sparks from smokestacks ignited fires, all of which altered the landscape. Little aware of consequences, farmers and miners plowed and polluted habitats, creating new environments unsuitable for native species. DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge not only presents the controversy of both sides in its Bertrand exhibit, but, like other national wildlife refuges, restores, improves, and maintains wildlife habitat throughout its 8,000 acres.

As expressed in the exhibit, “Steamboats were the first to deliver the ax, the pick, and the plow to this area—three tools that would forever alter the face of the West.”

Betty Mulcahy and her husband Chuck are full-time RVers who volunteer at national wildlife refuges as naturalists. She has been published in Escapees Magazine, InMotion Magazine, Refuge Update, Fish & Wildlife News, and other publications.