Blue Highways: Lake Itasca, Minnesota

Unfolding the Map

After a brief layoff, we resume our trip at the headwaters of the Mississippi River.  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) crosses it in five steps, and as we cross with him, I'll reflect on the importance of the river and relate a haunting experience I had next to it some years ago nearly two-thousand miles downstream in New Orleans.  Get to the source by following the map to Lake Itasca.

Book Quote

"The lake was Itasca and the stream, a twelve-inch-deep rush of cold clarity over humps of boulders, was the Mississippi River.  I crossed it in five steps.  The Father of Waters, beginning a two-thousand-mile journey to join the source of all waters, was here a newborn - small and pure."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 11

Where Lake Itasca begets the Mississippi River. Photo by Christine Kar and hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host page.

Lake Itasca, Minnesota

On this literary journey, we have already crossed the Mississippi twice.  The first crossing was at St. Louis, very early in LHM's trip, where I focused on the city in my third blog post about Blue Highways.  I also referenced an earlier post from my On the Road series, on which I wrote about the Gateway Arch.

The second time we crossed the Mississippi on our Blue Highways journey, we did it at Vicksburg as LHM sat on the bluffs and gave some facts about the siege of the city in the Civil War.  My post for Vicksburg was focused on the Civil War as our first modern war.

The only post where I've really looked at the Mississippi River was in my On the Road series when Sal Paradise crosses the Mississippi into Davenport, Iowa.  The river fascinates me, however.  I've seen it in a number of different states, and most recently I stood alongside its bank in New Orleans a few days ago.  It travels so many miles that it is difficult to believe that the river I saw in Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri and Louisiana is the same river.  It is even more difficult to believe that this vast collection of water draining America's heartland could have a source, and at its head could be something that one could step over in five steps.

I've not visited Lake Itasca, but I'm certain that some of the drops of that lake, escaping down the Mississippi sometime in the past, passed by me as I stood on the bank at the New Orleans riverfront in the midst of costumed Mardi Gras revelers. Whenever I stand on the banks of the Mississippi in New Orleans, I'm reminded of one of the most haunting images I've ever had.  It's a Mardi Gras story, and it's on my mind since I was just there for that unique American celebration.

It was probably my second or third attendance at Mardi Gras, 2002 or 2003.  My wife and I had developed a tradition by then of spending Fat Tuesday costumed in the French Quarter, wandering around in and out of bars and enjoying the cavalcade of costumed people, walking parades, and coordinated krewes of merry revelers assembled on the flimsiest of themes.  That year the fog was thick over the Quarter, making everyone nearby seem very close and yet, 50 feet down the street, fantastic shapes dark in the afternoon gloom flitted on the edge of imagination in the narrow streets.  The famous Society of St. Anne walking parade came by, and we jumped into the midst of the costumed parade, lost them in the fog and maze of streets, and then found them again as they made their way to the Mississippi.  The krewe has a tradition of carrying the ashes of departed members for their last parade through the French Quarter, and then sprinkling their ashes into the Mississippi.  We didn't know of this tradition at the time, but we followed the krewe up to the levee and to the landing where they gathered and then performed a ceremony with streamered hula hoops.  They dipped the hula hoops into the river and then waved them over the assembled members, droplets baptising the participants.  Then they spread ashes.

On any other day, a beautiful day for example, it would have been special.  But the fog over the Mississippi, the darkened bulk of a giant cargo ship passing in the middle of the river, the stark colors of the costumes standing out against the gray river reflecting the gray sky, added up to one of the most haunting scenes I have ever seen.  I won't forget it.  Given that I probably won't have a jazz funeral in New Orleans, I told my wife that I too would like my ashes paraded through the French Quarter when I die, and some - not all but some - sprinkled into the Mississippi to become part of that great river flowing through that great city.

Without the Mississippi, we would miss so much that defines the United States.  Without the Mississippi, one of our greatest pieces of literature, Huckleberry Finn, would not exist and possibly Mark Twain would have just been known as a good writer.  Without the Mississippi our economy would not have developed as it did by trade down its length and through its tributaries.  My favorite city of New Orleans would not exist without the river, and St. Louis might only be a decaying frontier town. The Mississippi Delta blues would sound a lot different if they existed at all.  And certainly, a haunting and wonderful event would have never crossed my experience without the muddy waters rolling past a Carnival celebration.

As I write these words, it is still difficult to believe that somewhere on a small glacial lake in Minnesota, an otherwise unimpressive stream that takes five steps to cross not only gives birth to one of the great rivers of the world, but also a river of history, culture, celebration and everything else pertaining to life along its banks.

Musical Interlude

I have a double shot for you in this post.  The first song that put the Mississippi in my mind was Black Water by The Doobie Brothers.  The second, Louisiana 1927 by Randy Newman, shows that the river can give life and take it away as well.

If you want to know more about Lake Itasca

Crooked Creek Observer: Lake Itasca (blog)
Itasca Area Lakes Tourism Association
Itasca State Park
Lake Itasca Region Pioneer Farmers
MinnesotaBound.com: Lake Itasca
Wikipedia: Lake Itasca

Next up: Walker, Minnesota

On the Road: Davenport, Iowa

Click on the Thumbail to get MapNote:  Originally published on Blogger on June 13, 2006.

Unfolding the Map

Today's blog really hits the heartland as Sal crosses the Mississippi, and I reflect on the big muddy. As always, you are free to click on the image, oh Littourati, to see the updated map!

Book Quote

"My first ride was a dynamite truck with a red flag...Along about three in the afternoon, after an apple pie and ice cream in a roadside stand, a woman stopped for me in a little coupe. ...But she was a middle-aged woman...and wanted somebody to help her drive to Iowa...and, though I'm not much of a driver, drove clear through the rest of Illinois to Davenport, Iowa, via Rock Island. And here for the first time, I saw my beloved Mississippi River, dry in the summer haze, low water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because it washes it up. Rock Island - railroad tracks, shacks, small downtown section; and over the bridge to Davenport, same kind of town, all smelling of sawdust in the warm midwest sun."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Davenport and the Mississippi

I'm not going to dwell much on Davenport, because I've really never been there so I won't know what I'm talking about. I have, however, seen the Mississippi. I've been lucky enough to see it in five places, and unlucky enough to not have seen it in a sixth.

The first time I saw the Mississippi, I crossed over it in that bus to Wyoming up in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. My recollection is hazy, but I don't remember it as being that big up there, since you are getting close to the headwaters, but as a young child we all knew the name of the Mississippi even if we couldn't spell the damn thing and therefore it was an important moment in my life. My second time seeing the the river was crossing over it by car in La Crosse, Wisconsin as I headed out to a retreat, a gathering, of the volunteer program I was a part of in Milwaukee. I remember a bigger river, with a barge or two tied up along the side, but I also have a vivid recollection of the main sight in La Crosse, the world's largest six pack of beer!

The third time I saw the river was in St. Louis, where the river really gets big and packs a punch because the Missouri River joins it just on the north side of the city. I almost personally experienced its power that time. I was up in the magnificent St. Louis Arch with a friend and had parked my car on a parking lot the literally sloped down into the river. Little did I know it was the beginning of the Mississippi floods. From the top I noticed that a few cars that had been dry before had their tires in the water and people were rushing up to get their cars out. By the time I got out of the arch and down to my car, its tires were in the water and the spaces where those other cars had been were completely submerged!

The fourth time I saw the Mississippi, I was in Quincy, Illinois and I also went across the river to Hannibal, Missouri to see Mark Twain's boyhood hometown. If any writer is synonymous with the Mississippi, it is Mark Twain, who lived on it, worked on it, and set what may be the greatest American novel, Huckleberry Finn, on and around it.

The fifth time I saw the Mississippi was when I lived in New Orleans. There was always something magical about taking the ferry from Algiers back into the downtown. The current was so strong at that huge sweeping curve in the river that the ferry would often labor upstream, allowing us to drift back to the downtown ferry terminal. Occasionally we would have to dodge a big freighter coming through. One night Megan, EB and I watched the biggest ship we had ever seen, towering some 10 stories over us, silently slip by and disappear under and past the Crescent City Connection bridge and on up the river. EB and Megan tried to chase it, but even as silent as it seemed, it was moving faster than they could run.

The sixth time I didn't see the Mississippi was up in the Delta country, where the blues was born. It was always something that we meant to do. We were going to drive up the river to the blues country, to Natchez or some other area. And we never did.

The river is an amazing thing. It has a life of its own, as Mark Twain will tell you, despite the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers and others have tried to tame it. It empties a continent, like a giant artery, pumping life AND waste down it's length and into the Gulf. It has contributed mightily to our culture and music. A legendary story from the Mississippi concerns the great cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who evidently heard from the shore the amazing trumpet playing of Louis Armstrong on a riverboat in the Mississippi, and decided to take up the trumpet. "The raw body of America itself." Jack Kerouac and Sal describe it well.

For more information on Davenport or the Mississippi

City of Davenport
Downtown Davenport
E-Podunk: Davenport
Wikipedia: Davenport

Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" Online
Mark Twain's Mississippi River 
Songs of the Mississippi River
Wikipedia: Mississippi River

Next up: Iowa City and Des Moines, Iowa