Itasca State Park

I just assumed that everyone who lived, as a child, had visited the headwaters of the Mississippi River when they were a kid, doing the family caravan thing in a station wagon. I knew that I had done that, but learned that the Woman had never been there. While it wasn’t directly on our path South, it wasn’t that far out of the way.

As we neared Itasca State Park, we began crossing the Mississippi River on bridges – it was more of a creek up here than a river. But it was really cool to see where the source of the 4^th longest river in the world got its start. We spotted this lovely ladder-back woodpecker on a trail that meandered along the edge of the River.

Itasca was great and well worth a visit if you haven’t. The Park has oodles of  history – in the early 1800’s the local settlers had their share of feuds. In October of 1898, William McMullen was hunting with Nelson Rust when Rust shot him through the heart. Rust claimed he thought the white scarf McMullen wore was the tail of a deer. Friends of McMullen knew that Rust wanted the land that McMullen owned, and believed it was not an accident. Rust was acquitted at trial, but the marker in the 1800’s era Pioneer Cemetery where the early settlers are buried leaves the question open.

Apparently the source of the great Mississippi was unknown well into the mid-1800’s. Since the river passes through several lakes in its early miles many debated which lake was actually the source. Eventually scientists agreed it was, in fact, Lake Itasca that served as the source. Land surveyor Jacob Bower is credited with providing the best evidence to support the lake as the true source, and Henry Schoolcraft renamed the lake Itasca coined from a combination of Latin words essentially meaning “truth head”.

We had a spectacular visit, especially since the weather was 70 and sunny, not very normal for late October this far North in Minnesota. We hiked all the trails we could find, and visited all the CCC era structures that still remain in the Park.

The pooch joined us on several of the hikes and enjoyed it thoroughly. Kona had never strolled through fallen leaves before, and you could clearly see how happy he was romping and creating a leaf crinkling ruckus.

We saw visitor alerts all over the roadways in Itasca Park. I assume that they may actually post some meaningful warnings at times, but when it’s sunny and 70’s, maybe this is all you get warned about or alerted to. 

While we haven’t driven all of it, I can safely say that we have easily driven more than half of the Great River Road that lines the entire length of the Mississippi River. Much of it we drove in the heartland a couple years ago from the Twin Cities down to Missouri. But, we had never driven a portion of the Road that actually lies North of the headwaters. We learned that as the Mississippi leaves the waters of Itasca, it actually makes a big sweeping curve Northeast, and then begins its long trudge to New Orleans. So, we added a whole bunch more Great River Road mile notches to our belt.

Here I am actually standing in the center of the Mississippi River just a few feet from Lake Itasca. While the water was brisk, the sun and the 70’s made the venture worthwhile. It didn’t take very long for my numb feet to return to normal.

Talk to you soon!