Friday, July 13, 2018

     Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Friday.

     Have you ever walked across the boulders at the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca?  Have you marveled with the half million other visitors at how this pretty little stream travels first north then south for 2,340 miles to the Gulf of Mexico? Well you're enjoying a consumer driven fantasy experience. Also, there's still controversy over the true source of the river.
     It was on this day in 1832 that Henry Schoolcraft and his band of explorers, guided by the Ojibway Ozaawindib reached what the Ojibwa called  Omashkoozo-zaaga'igan, or Elk Lake. Schoolcraft changed the name to Veritas Caput, Latin for true head. He cut off the 'ver' and the 'put' and gave us Itasca.
    Many others before Schoolcraft had searched for the source. Zebulon Pike had come through in 1805 and said the Turtle River was the source. In 1820, Michigan's territorial governor Lewis Cass visited Turtle River. The Turtle River flows into Upper Red Cedar Lake. Cass thought that was too long and changed the name to Cass Lake, then left. The local Indians told Schoolcraft who was along on the expedition that the source of the Mississippi was fifty miles to the southwest. It took Schoolcraft 12 years to return to the area.
    Geographers who came later in the 1800s discovered that there was another Elk Lake that ran into Itasca, and also several spring fed streams that ran into Elk Lake. Shouldn't these streams be considered the source? That's how it's done with rivers like the Amazon and the Nile. But the sources of the Nile and the Amazon are not located next to highways and campgrounds. When access is difficult, the truth has time to seep out.
    Anyways, by the early 1900s, the area around the source had been messed up by logging, so in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps moved the source a few hundred feet "to make the tourist experience more exciting."
    As for Henry Schoolcraft, after the 1832 expedition, he returned to his job as an Indian agent, Unfortunatly, he lost all his money in the Panic of 1837. To make matters worse, a Whig was elected president in 1841 and all Democrats like Schoolcraft lost their jobs. He had a stroke in 1848 and, assisted by his wife, spent the last 16 years of his life writing a six volume work on the Indians of America. The books contained lots of useful information, but lacked an index and so were little consulted at the time.

Watch your footing. Louisiana doesn't need your flip flops.