After having met our sight-seeing goals in Minnesota's twin cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, we decided to try and find something else in Minnesota that would fit our time schedule as well as suit our interests in nature, history, and trail-hiking and/or biking. While preparing to check out of the hotel in Stillwater earlier that day, I browsed through a thin Minnesota tourist pamphlet. My attention was instantly captured when I read that northern Minnesota's Itasca State Park not only offered lots of beautiful hiking trails - it was home to the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi river! The short article in the pamphlet enticed would-be visitors by mentioning the ability to wade across the headwaters of Old Man River, since it was little more than a 25-yard wide, knee-deep brook at its source. The prospect of doing just that, coupled with the fact that we adore hiking forest trails, left us no doubt that Lake Itasca would be our next sight-seeing goal in Minnesota.
Itasca State Park is in the northern half of Minnesota, so our goal was to drive as far as Park Rapids, MN, which is about 18 miles from the south end of Itasca State Park. We arrived just after dark had settled, so we found a very nice "non-chain" motor lodge in which to spend the night so that we could get and good night's sleep and have the whole next day to enjoy the park. The next morning, we awoke to bright, blue, sunny skies that promised a good day for trail-walking and river-wading. We eagerly got ready, checked out of the motel, and ate a good breakfast at a nearby chain restaurant, and were soon on our way to the state park.
It was just a short drive north on U.S. Highway 71 to reach the east entrance of the park. We drove at least 1/2 mile into the 32,000 acre forest before we reached the park ranger's station and paid the entrance fee. We parked the car at the Jacob V. Brower visitor's center, located about 200 yards further into the forest, to pick up a map or other information about the park. We were impressed to see that the visitor's center was a big, modern, beautiful building full of interesting displays, as well as current and historical information about the park and northern Minnesota. So, we walked around and looked at several of the displays and videos before setting off to the trails.
We studied our newly acquired trail map in order to choose a forest trail from which we could reach the Mississippi headwaters. We ended up hiking a combination of trails to reach our destination - approximately 5.5 miles from the visitor's center. There were historical and botanical markers along the trail, as well as a couple of interesting historical cabins and mini-museums. The weather was perfect, and the scenery was gorgeous!
We met some really nice folks along the trail, and stopped to chat with a few. I was wearing a sun visor with "Sweden" written on it that day, and to our surprise, we overheard one of the women in a group that passed us by say the word "Sverige", which is the Swedish word for "Sweden". I stopped on a dime, spun around, and asked (in Swedish) "Are you from Sweden?". It turned out that the oldest woman in the group had, in fact, immigrated from Sweden when she was about 6 years old, but she had unfortunately forgotten most of her native Swedish. We enjoyed a pleasant chat with the women about Sweden, before parting our ways.
Suddenly, after having walked over an hour, we came into a clearing and saw, to our joy, the headwaters of the Mississippi! We've traveled quite a bit and have seen a lot of fantastic things, but due to its historical importance as a major waterway during America's developement, wading across Old Man River was without a doubt one of our most thrilling and meaningful adventures. If you love nature and history, you MUST visit the Mississippi headwaters at Itasca State Park!!
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