24 Nebraskaland • June 2019
We always had to make sure we were
close to water, though – which was sort
of cool, because I didn't think about that
until a little bit later. You've got to have
water, so you've got to think about that
every day. And then when you have that
water, you have to conserve it, because
you may not have very much to draw
from, or you don't want to go walk 200
yards back down to the lake or the creek
to pump another 20 minutes to get more
water out. You're thinking about water
almost all the time.
Q: This was a 55-day trip —
over 1,300 miles of hiking,
biking and canoeing. What
was that journey like for you
personally?
Physically it was hard, but mentally
I didn't think it was all that rough,
because we were with really good people
the whole time. It really made me slow
down, because when you're operating
under your own power, you're only going
as fast as your body will allow you to.
And then when you get on the river
in a boat, you're only going as fast as
that water's going to take you. So you
might as well enjoy it. Everything slows
down, and you get into the rhythm of
this place. You get into the rhythm of
the river, you get into the rhythm of the
mountains or the plains.
I wish everybody could do that. We
could get in my truck right now and
drive to the place where we started and
be there in probably 11 hours, and we
could do it in a glass and steel bubble,
and never know where we just went
through. So, 11 hours or 55 days.
Q: What were the goals of the
trip and the documentary,
and do you feel like they were
accomplished?
We wanted to get people to think
about where their water comes from,
and thinking about the watershed as a
place that we live in. We live in the state
of Nebraska, yes. But we also live in a
watershed, and that watershed doesn't
pay attention to any straight lines that
we drew on a map. It's nature's borders
and boundaries, and we're all neighbors
together. There's always somebody
upstream of us, there's always somebody
downstream of us. All of the people that
are attached to this film are a part of
that community. We all live in the same
place, we all rely on this water in some
way, and it connects all of us together in
a very personal way.
Snowmelt cascades down the wild slopes of Argentine Peak along Colorado's Front
Range on its way to the South Platte River.
