The Headwaters

We had a really nice outing to the headwaters of the Mississippi at Itasca State Park.  The park was established in 1891 and  it is the oldest State Park in Minnesota.

The Mary Gibbs Center at the headwaters was closed but the trail down to the headwaters was free from snow until we got close to the lake, then the path turned to snow but it was easy walking. 

Click on this photo to make it bigger.  I laughed out loud at the reference to “the voracious long billed and dyspeptic musketoe”

It was quiet.  You could hear the water going around the rocks. No musketoes …winter has a few good points.

The rocks that you can walk over were covered in snow.   I have not been to the park in the winter before.   Some day I would like to go back and catch a sunrise.

That is Lake Itasca in the above photo and the mighty Mississippi begins at the rocks.  In the summer the tourists walk over the rocks and pose for photos there.

The Mississippi meanders on its way out of the park.

 

The water is clear and cold.

There it is on it’s way north to Bemidji. 

Itasca State Park is not that far from our home, seems like we should go there more often.

Chance: The Mississippi

While everyone else in the world was having a party before some foot game we went on an adventure.

Ready to come along?

 

We headed across a bridge…to a place called The Headwaters of the Mississippi. 

We had the whole place to ourselves.  We did share a bit with a couple of cross country skiers.  I greeted them.

There is a foot bridge across the Mississippi…actually a flat log across the water.

I almost went across by myself.  It had some good smells.

There is safety in numbers.  Certainly if we all go across everything will be okay?  Far Guy why don’t you go first?  Wait…what if…what if…

What if you fall in and get wet?  You will freeze solid as a board while Far Side captures it all on camera.  I suppose once you are frozen we can put my leash around your neck and drag you back to the car.

Far Side are you coming?  Nope..she ain’t and  if she ain’t trekking over that log neither am I.

Later we all walked over this bridge together, with me in the lead.  It was getting cold.  It was just a few degrees above zero…but at least it was above zero and we all got out of the house.

Wistful Wednesday: CCC Camp 1936

The Civilian Conservation Corps was part of the New Deal proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a public relief program for unemployed men after the Great Depression. The CCC workers worked on natural resource conservation from 1933 to 1942. They built buildings and made roads and trails in State and National Parks.

Far Guys Dad worked in the CCC Camp at Lake Itasca in 1936. He recalled a really cold winter. The deer were starving, so they were told to distribute hay bales, the deer kept dying, but their bellies were full of hay. Deer cannot digest hay in the winter their stomachs are used to twigs and what ever else they can browse. In the spring he helped to plant trees and clear out trails around the Headwaters of the Mississippi.

This photograph was taken on February 10, 1936. On the back of the photo is the date and this notation. 52 BELOW ZERO.

I am hoping that my Grandchildren will take note of this story someday, perhaps one day when they walk across the rocks of the Headwaters on a warm day they will have a new appreciation for the cool shade of the tree lined walkway back to the parking lot:)