Font ResizeIt's easy to take the Mississippi River for granted when you live in the Twin Cities. It gets reduced to a boundary we drive over to get to our jobs or to a restaurant or to a friend's house on the other side. We might holler to the kids in the backseat as we zip across a bridge — "Look, there's the river!" But usually, we don't even notice it's there.
Our family decided to take a closer look at this national treasure. Last fall, the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area started offering podcast walking tours of a four-mile loop along the river in downtown St. Paul. The program blends exercise tips, music and natural and cultural trivia about the Mississippi.
We borrowed free iPods at the Mississippi River Visitor Center off the lobby of the Science Museum of Minnesota. Our 5-year-old son was delighted to fiddle with his volume control, and our toddler settled happily into her stroller.
We popped in our ear buds and a chipper male voice guided us at a brisk walk down Kellogg Boulevard and south on the Wabasha Street Bridge, which we learned takes its name from the leader of the Mdewakanton band of Dakota who settled along the river. Below us, the river flowed at 3 mph, about the same speed we were walking. So far, so good!
HISTORY LESSON
Downstream we spotted a single red kayak. A hundred and fifty years ago, we would have seen several steamboats a day docking in St. Paul, the northernmost stop on the river before locks and dams made the
Today, the river is narrower and deeper. The Army Corps of Engineers started dredging, closing back channels and building dams in the 1860s to create a channel for shipping. We learned one of those back channels used to flow around Harriet Island, but it was filled in during the 1950s. That answered my 5-year-old's question.
"Is this really an island?" he wanted to know as we walked next to the riverbank under huge cottonwood trees at Harriet Island Regional Park.
At about the mile mark, my son begged to climb into the stroller with his sister. And I handed off pushing duties to my husband for the hike from the river bottom up Ohio Street to the top of the bluff along Cherokee Avenue.
As we climbed, we learned the bluffs are made of three layers — a cap of hard limestone, a middle wedge of shale and a bottom layer of soft St. Peter sandstone that German immigrants dug out to create caves for brewing beer.
We had been walking for nearly an hour by the time we reached the top of the High Bridge, 160 feet above the river. We stopped to take in the view of downtown. The huge banner on the back of the Science Museum now looked like a postage stamp, reminding us of how far we'd come.
The podcast told us that 12,000 years ago, a waterfall higher than Niagara Falls crashed at our feet, powered by a river of glacial melt water that also carved the Mississippi River gorge through the Twin Cities.
WORTH THE WALK
At about the middle of the High Bridge, my kids hit their limit. My son got bored with his iPod, and the toddler started screaming, "Me quished! Me quished." (Translation: "I'm squished. Get me out!") We let her walk, but she couldn't walk fast enough to keep up with the podcast.
By the time we hit Irvine Park, my energy was flagging. I admired the Victorian houses in one of St. Paul's oldest neighborhoods, but all I really wanted to do was sit down. I felt like a mule pulling a barge.
"You're supposed to be doing an exercise walk," chastised my son, who had been refreshed by his stint in the stroller and was now speed walking up and down the sidewalk with exaggerated arm swings. "That's not an exercise walk!"
We lopped off the last part of the podcast that would have taken us down Shepard Road. Instead we plodded straight to the Science Museum parking lot, where we'd parked the van ($6 for two hours).
Were we glad we did the tour? Yes.
It was a glorious spring day and the novelty of the podcast lured us to a route we otherwise never would have attempted. My son liked the gadgetry. I enjoyed learning about the river. (I could have done without the exercise advice and synthesizer soundtrack). But in the end, the payoff had nothing to do with technology or trivia.
My husband turned his podcast off halfway through the program, preferring to listen to the wind, look at the river and let his mind wander. I think he was on to something.
Once you get near the river, it's enough to simply experience it, at leisure and on foot.
MAJA BECKSTROM CAN BE REACHED AT 651-228-5295. FAMILY OUTINGS / THE SCOOP
What: "Healthy River Healthy You," a four-mile podcast walking tour of the Mississippi River
Where: Starts at the Science Museum of Minnesota, 120 W. Kellogg Blvd. in downtown St. Paul, and follows a route across the Wabasha Bridge and back on the Smith Avenue High Bridge.
Information: 651-293-0200 or nps.gov/miss
Cost: Download free podcast and map from nps.gov/miss/hrhy.htm. Or borrow a free loaded iPod at the Mississippi River Visitor Center in the Science Museum lobby. (Staff will take your credit card number and a $200 charge will appear if you fail to return the iPod).
Target audience: Adults or children able to walk 1 1/2 hours or so and who would appreciate historical and natural river trivia. Also works for children in strollers.
Crowd pleaser: View from the top of the High Bridge.
Avoid: Tuckered-out kids. Make sure your children can handle the walk.
Tip: Pack water and a snack for a stop along the way.
About this series: This is the first in an occasional series of Family Outings exploring the Mississippi River.
