Mississippi Headwaters - Itasca State Park, Minnesota

Today I found the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca in Itasca State Park. I had the rewarding experience of getting to feel like a real explorer because Thelma had never heard of Itasca State Park and, although she did have a record of the Mississippi Headwaters, in her virtual world this critical landmark is located approximately a mile south of the one in the real world.

When I finally did find the headwaters, I also found myself slightly disappointed. This little dribble of a creek is the birthplace of the mile wide Mississippi? Surely there must be some mistake?

A tablet erected at the beginning of the creek assures me: "Here 1475 ft above the ocean the mighty Mississippi begins to flow on its winding way 2552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico." At the time I had no real metric concept of how high 1475 feet might be (450 m), or how far 2552 miles was (4107 km), but it seemed certain that this shallow watercourse wannabe really was the Mississippi River.

The Mississippi is another great traveller and I decided that I should pay my respects. In keeping with my tradition of getting my feet wet at every opportunity I decided to wade across the Mississippi. Actually, "wade" is perhaps too grand a term. It seems to imply the possibility of getting wet above mid-calf, which did not exist here without falling in. The water is so shallow and goes on its way so gently that I could, if it hadn't been so cold a morning or so popular a destination, have laid down on my back in the middle and never had water up my nose.

Visiting the Mississippi Headwaters can be rather a challenging experience if you, like me, know almost nothing about Old Man River except what you've heard in songs or from Mark Twain. Unfortunately, almost everything you think you know about the river is a lie. For example, Lake Itasca is the "official" headwaters of the river. Even its name is a combination of the latin words "veritas caput" which translates as "true head." But Lake Itasca isn't the real headwaters at all. The real beginning is at the Hernando de Soto Lake to the south. Perhaps Thelma was right after all.

Even this false start is a fake. Those natural looking rocks and all the sand you see in the photos above were planted there in the 1930s to make the headwaters look prettier for tourists. The original flow north from Lake Itasca into the Mississippi was sluggish and swampy and altogether unbecoming for such a mighty river. So they improved it.

That's another thing. The Mississippi flows south to the Gulf of Mexico, right? Well, kind of. First it flows due north to Lake Bemidji.

Lake Bemidji is not only a really big body of water.

It also features other really big bodies standing by its shore. Australian readers who may not recognise the mythical characters of Paul Bunyan the giant lumberjack and his blue ox Babe may wish to read up a little to understand why these statues are here. I'm not sure that it will help much, but it's worth a try. According to one of the many Paul Bunyan legends, Lake Bemidji was created by his footprint. Obviously, this looming statue is only a scale model.

Finally, and most painfully of all, the Mississippi River doesn't even have the right name. According to river naming conventions the Mississippi should end at St. Louis. The Missouri River, which joins the Mississippi at this point, should be the one that flows on to the Gulf. It is the longer river and seniority properly confers naming rights.

Having devoted a sensible amount of time to being disappointed by these discoveries, I finally managed to accept them with good grace. The Mississippi is not just a body of water. It is a legend, a narrative device that weaves together the stories of a nation. So what if, like all great legends, it's only partly true?