The Mississippi River I knew growing up in the South was wide and thunderous, silty and vengeful. It swallowed up whole towns when the mood struck, which seemed to be often if you watched the evening news. As a kid, I reckoned the river started somewhere in Kentucky or Missouri, maybe Illinois. I never pictured it flowing south from Minnesota, less than 150 miles from the Canadian border.
Although the name Mississippi comes from the Algonquian word misi-ziibi, meaning “great river,” my grade school narrative failed to mention the Indigenous people gathering wild rice from hand-carved canoes and hardy loggers in the northern woodlands assembling timber rafts. It wasn't until I moved to Minneapolis that I understood that directional phrases like “west of the Mississippi” existed because the river literally bisects America.
Established in 1938, the Great River Road, which follows the waterway from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, rubbing shoulders with 10 states along the way, was recently promoted by the Federal Highway Administration from a National Scenic Byway to an All-American Road—a designation that acknowledges its natural beauty and historic, cultural, and recreational relevance. Curious how the northernmost leg compares to the southern stretch I knew as a child, I ventured to the headwaters in Itasca State Park. The plan was to work my way backward to the Twin Cities, through a national forest, an Ojibwe reservation, and three state parks.
Headwaters of the Mississippi River at Itasca State Park
GettyMore than 100 lakes pock the dense woods of Itasca. There is the Preacher's Grove, a thicket of red pines three centuries old, and Pioneer Cemetery, a final resting place for early Itascan homesteaders. But most tourists gather at the headwaters, a 900-foot stroll from the parking lot. They skip rocks and dip their bare feet in the frigid waters and TikTok next to a wooden sign that reads “Here 1,475 ft above the ocean, the Mighty Mississippi begins to flow on its winding way 2,552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.”
For a river associated with so many superlatives, the Mississippi starts with a whimper. It's just a lazy stream purling at the edge of a placid lake, calm and clear and barely 12 feet wide—nothing like the murky waters I remembered stretching a mile and a half from bank to bank, gleaning strength from the tributaries of the Ohio and Missouri rivers.
What most captivated me was what came after the headwaters, as I traced the river's fishhook curves through beaver dams and threadbare stands of birch and aspen, past armories and churches and trading posts shilling “Uff Da!” shot glasses and Minnetonka moccasins. There was Bemidji High School, home of the Lumberjacks, and a bald eagle pecking at roadkill. In Lake Bemidji State Park, I strode a boardwalk through a fragile spruce and tamarack bog, eyes peeled for pitcher plants and any creature unfortunate enough to be mummified beneath the floating mat of sphagnum moss.
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July 06, 2021 at 07:00PM
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Exploring Another Side of the Mississippi River Along the Great River Road - Condé Nast Traveler
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