ST. CHARLES, MO ‒ With every dip of his wooden paddle, river guide Mark Malkowicz floats a little bit deeper into the wilderness − a neat trick since his canoe is about to slide beneath an interstate bridge a few miles outside St. Louis.
More than a hundred feet above, semitrailers thunder across the span over the 1,500-foot-wide Missouri River. Commuters head to work. Tourists eagerly await their first glimpse of the soaring Gateway Arch, the national symbol of westward expansion and colonization.
But at river level, a Canada goose leads its goslings along the shoreline. A bald eagle soars overhead. Swallows twist in the air as they chase insects. Fish jump out of the muddy water…