Mississippi River Road
October 23, 1997
Based on its name “Great River Road,” it might seem logical to assume that along this “great” river is also a “great” road. Certainly, there is justification for describing the river as “great” but to describe the road as “great” requires a little imagination. For sure, the road is great in length. As the crow flies it is about 1450 miles from its start in Minaki, Ontario to the end at the mouth of the Mississippi, south-east of Venice, LA. The river is 2334 miles long and forms part of the borders of nine states. But when the connecting roads into Canada and the roads on both sides of the Mississippi are added, the total length of the Great River Road must exceed 3000 miles. If you think that the Federal Governments of the USA and Canada jointly decided to build a first-class road throughout the length of the “road,” - forget it! The roads are a mixture of city, county, state, and federal trails and highways that happen to border the river. Many were built to form an all-weather surface capable of supporting the 16-wheel grain trucks that carry corn and soybeans from the field to the river. There the crops are loaded onto the barges and transported to the various corners of the earth to feed the rapidly multiplying human species. In a few places, the road is surfaced only with gravel, but most of its length is paved. Although the paved portions are fairly smooth, there are some rough stretches. Not having exact figures, my best guess is that most of the road consists of county and state highways. Driving a 35-foot motorhome down its length can be challenging, but by following state highway maps and using our intuition, making wrong turns at intersections have been the exception rather than the rule. Most intersections are well marked with the circular, green, Great River Road sign.
To complicate our decision-making, in Minnesota there are two versions of the Great River Road - the nationally designated and the state versions. The state version often follows the Mississippi river more closely than the national version but is often unpaved. From the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca, the river and roads follow a question mark shaped path throughout central Minnesota. From Itasca to Lake Bemidji the river flows north towards Canada. Then it loops toward the east through Lake Bemidji, Lake Cass, and Lake Winnie. (Lake Winnie or Winnibigoshish, is one of the few lakes on the Mississippi River that can serve as a water reservoir capable of assisting in flood control.) Further downriver, we searched for rapids at the city of Grand Rapids, only to find a dam in the center of town that flooded and covered the rapids from view. A huge paper mill on the river uses river water in processing the paper. Where the water flows out of the mill, foam forms on top of the water, prompting us to wonder what chemicals may have been picked up while logs were transformed into paper.
The river flows south, then southwest to Brainerd and Little Falls. St. Cloud serves as the dot on the question mark. Not yet a large river, the Mississippi flows fairly naturally through this area until it reaches Minneapolis. Now it becomes something of a large canal that is diked, dammed, damned, praised, dug, managed and manipulated. Aldo Leopold was probably horrified by what man has done with this river. The upper and lower Saint Anthony Falls Locks and Dams provided power for the milling industry in Minneapolis and allow river traffic to pass upriver a few miles above the Falls, but the river is no longer a wild and natural part of scenic America. From Minneapolis to St. Louis there are 27 locks and dams designed to raise the water level above the various rapids and other shallow waters to permit navigation by barges, towboats, and various private boats. It forms a virtual mecca for houseboats, weekend pleasure craft, fishing boats, and yachts. Below Saint Anthony Falls the river has worn through softer sedimentary rock forming a gorge that begins in Minneapolis and continues to Dubuque, IA. Except for the naturally formed Lake Pepin by Lake City, MN, the larger lakes along the Mississippi are formed behind the locks and dams. The river has worn through 400 to 600 feet of rock throughout its geological history, forming the gorge. From the top of the bluffs, the view across this gorge provides a fascinating panorama of wildlife preserves, lakes, towns, roads, boats, dams, electric plants and the ever-present railroad that runs on both sides of the river. Picturesque views may be found in many locations along the river, but the ones that we particularly remember are overlooks at Alma, WI, Grandad’s Bluff at La Crosse, WI, and Pikes Peak at McGregor, IA. The view at Pikes Peak is particularly memorable because it not only provides a sweeping view of the Mississippi but also provides a view up the Wisconsin River where the French explorers Marquette and Joliet discovered a canoe route from Lake Michigan, through Green Bay, WI. to the Mississippi River.
Many of the drives along the river are very scenic, but one sticks out in my mind. The river road drive from McGregor to Dubuque, IA. often follows small, fairly rough, country roads, but the scenery is exceptional. The bluffs are often cut by current or ancient rivers and creeks that flowed toward the Mississippi so that the highway provides some challenging climbs, descents and turns through many small valleys and back up to the rolling farmland. A mosaic of farmland changes to woods, pastures, creeks or bluffs with every turn in the road. Much of the area is dairy country. Viewed from the highway running along a high ridge, the dairy farms spread out below show colorful patterns of Holstein cattle, corn and alfalfa fields grown on contour, and the classical, large red barns. Breaking the pastoral pattern are the steep hillsides and gullies often covered predominantly with silver maple trees, now reflecting peach-colored hues in the autumn sun. Stopping at one overlook, we watched a farmer mowing alfalfa, his John Deere tractor precariously tilted as it moved along the steep hillside. A black dog ran beside and around the tractor in the freshly mown field. True to his wolf ancestry, he stopped and smelled the air. As members of another species of animal who, through evolutionary time, predominantly used the sense of sight for hunting, we can only wonder about the sensory imagery presented to a dog through its sense of smell. Is the dog really trying to detect the scent of a rabbit or deer? Would its evolutionary instincts remember or understand the smell of a bison or elk? The farmer sensed our presence, looked up, smiled and waved - we waved back. The mower and dog disappeared over the hillside. The smell of freshly cut alfalfa filled the air. Our senses were overwhelmed by the panoramic scene complete with the pleasant, earthy odors of the country. The backdrop for this picturesque scene was the Mississippi River, winding it way down the long, wide valley.
In 1949, a fellow named Mel Ellis wrote “A History of Fish and Fishing in the Upper Mississippi River.” He claimed that “... Ol’ Man River isn’t a river at all. In fact, he’s a hundred rivers and a thousand lakes, and more sloughs than you could explore in a lifetime. He is creeks, bayous, ditches, puddles, and thousands and thousands of impenetrable lotus beds that break big yellow flowers out of green pads.” What Mr. Ellis does not mention is that many of the bayous, ditches, lakes, and puddles are not natural. They were formed when waters backed up behind the many dams; flooding old river beds, and even covering some of the old riverside towns. At the Trempealeau Wildlife Center, north of La Crosse, WI. we visited with a local volunteer who explained how the Center is being managed and how they are improving duck, goose and swan habitat. Wells have been dug to provide clean water to fill areas behind new dikes in the river bottom. They would carefully control the water depth to enhance the growth of wild celery and arrowroot needed by the waterfowl. River water is not preferred because it is contaminated with PCBs, coming primarily from Minneapolis and St. Paul, that are harmful to wildlife. Preserving all wildlife is apparently not the primary goal. As the new lowlands are flooded, much of the native vegetation and animal life will die or be forced to leave. Certainly, we all like to see more ducks, geese, and swans, but at what cost to other forms of wildlife? Then we heard the sounds of duck hunter guns and part of the answer flashed into my mind. The duck hunting lobby is probably a powerful political force, especially when they join forces with birding groups who wish to see more ducks. Largely ignorant of the complex interactions and dependencies between the ecological components of this ecosystem, they are doomed to experience the problems that arise from the unintended consequences of their actions. How many of the engineers that designed the dams on the Mississippi could have guessed how these dams would affect the fauna and flora of the river? Near Lake City, MN. we read the story of the paddle? fish in the Mississippi that was threatened with extinction because the dams on the Mississippi interfered with their normal spawning patterns.
Interestingly, one of the unintended consequences of wildlife management and other technologies is that bald eagle numbers continue to increase. Unretrieved ducks wounded by hunters are easy prey for young, inexperienced eagles migrating down the Mississippi. Also, during the winter, eagles congregate below the dams to feed on fish injured when they pass through the locks. Nuclear power plants release warm water into the river that prevents the ice from forming. Eagles fish throughout the winter on these open waters. Add these reasons to the fact that eagles are a protected species and we have a partial explanation for the health status of bald eagles.
Many of the small towns located below the bluffs and along the river provide RV parks for the tourist in an apparent attempt to beef up the customer base for the town businesses. The size, quality, and features of these parks vary greatly, but there is one inescapable feature - the noise of trains passing close by requires some adjustment in sleeping patterns.
One of the most impressive features of towns and cities in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois are the sizes of their cemeteries. To repeat an old cliche, “Folks have been dying to get in” these cemeteries since the late 1700's. Even very small towns often have large cemeteries.
Driving the Great River Road provides some assistance in helping fill some of those blank spots in my education. Maybe daydreaming in school, when I should have been listening, was not such a good an idea. Names like Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Joseph Smith and many others take on a new meaning when we have a chance to walk the paths that they walked. When their ideas are tempered by my lifetime of experience and mental atrophy, the absolute truth of their opinions becomes less important for me than the role they played in the development, evolution, and history of the country. Take for example the story of the Mormons. It is not necessary to believe that Joseph Smith actually found those golden plates near Manchester, NY, to understand the importance of the Mormons in the development of the Western United States. After Smith was killed by a mob in Carthage, IL. and 20,000 Mormons were evicted from Nauvoo, IL. by the local gentiles (non-Mormons), many of them followed Brigham Young across the icy Mississippi. They started on rafts but “miraculously” the river froze solid and many simply walked across. Traveling over 1000 miles past the limits of civilization to Utah, they experienced great hardships. The details of this “Exodus” and the development of the Mormon Trail form one of the most interesting stories in the history of the United States.
Is it really possible that history can be so interesting now when it was so boring in school?
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