Veritas caput

Bemidji to Lake Itasca, Minnesota. Saturday, June 12, 2021

Another perfect, but event–filled day. Mary made me a wonderful breakfast of blueberry pancakes and whole grains, with real maple syrup. She was a terrific host. As always, the challenge is getting going in the morning, when there is so much to talk about.

I hadn’t actually been to the center of Bemidji, but I had to stop by the bike shop so I got a look. Charming little town, named for a heroic native chief who, like so many others, was promised land in perpetuity only to be displaced and displaced again to ever-shrinking reservations. Such a stain on our history, a theme I will be revisiting a number of times on this trip.

As with many north woods towns, there is the requisite statue of Paul Bunyan, with Babe, his blue ox.

The road to Itasca was only 35 miles, but I’d dithered so long a 25 mph headwind had sprung up, so it took longer. I’m getting used to these, good practice for North Dakota, AKA the “Saudi Arabia of wind”. Stopped in a tiny bar in Becida and had a frosty mug of their local 1919 root beer, struck up a conversation with Louie Pfann and his family who spend summers here and winters in Mesa Arizona, they offered me a place to stay if I pass through Mesa.

Further down the road I saw a bunch of parked cars by a Mississippi crossing, turns out it was an encampment protesting Line 3, the Minnesota pipeline employing all those pipeliners. Now that the plug has been pulled for the Keystone Pipeline, I suspect this project’s days are numbered, too. I rang my bell and raised my fist in solidarity. Reminded me of going downtown to the Department of the Interior in DC at age 16 for the very first Earth Day on 4/22/70, raising our fists and chanting “Off the Oil!” Well, it’s taking a while, but we may get there yet. At least I ain’t using any of the stuff (yeah, yeah I know. Those ferries, and the lube I carry).

Then on to the main event, Lake Itasca, source of the Father of Waters. This iconic place has loomed in my imagination almost as much as Finisterre (see my Camino blog in the menu above). I’ve been wanting to come here for decades. I always assumed it was a Native American name, but the Ojibwe called it Omushkos, for Elk Lake.

No, it was the patrician eastern-educated Henry Schoolcraft who named it, guided there by Ozawindib, he claimed “discovery” of the long-sought “true head” or veritas caput of the Mississippi, Itasca is a contraction of those two words. One of many faux-Indian names he invented.

So another story of the white man presuming to name a place the natives had known for centuries, but that snarky tale can’t diminish the wonder of it all. The lake is beautiful and pristine, and at the north end a little stream begins a tumble through some gentle stones, where I, along with hundreds of others today, easily waded or rock-hopped across the greatest river in North America. I tried to pull the typical tourist boneheaded move of FaceTiming the event to family and friends, but only Anne was picking up. Thank you, sweet sister.

It’s all too bloody picturesque to be real, and indeed it isn’t. Schoolcraft encountered a marshy beginning to the river, which the CCC drained and bulldozed to create this scene. Hey, I’ll take it. Ain’t that America.

Never could take a decent selfie, so a couple came to the rescue, Jerry and Donna Gross from Fargo.

Another in a series of remarkable coincidences, Donna grew up half a block from my grandmother Estela de Lima in Manhattan, and Jerry is a hematologist-oncologist who trained in Boston and knew many of my former colleagues. We found ourselves chatting excitedly for many minutes, even though we both had to get going. Too bad.

Pine Ridge Campground was full but well thought out and comfortable. I wasn’t done chatting, even after the sun went down. Adjacent campers Markus and Dora invited me for S’mores and a beer; he’s a computer engineer from Stuttgart now working for Cray Supercomputer (recently bought out by HPE), she is a veterinarian from Zagreb, Croatia, who is pursuing her PhD in molecular biology from U Minnesota Minneapolis. Their rescue dog Vegas was wary and protective, but ultimately charming, like his owners. I didn’t get to the showers until almost midnight.

Distance 38 miles, 2,540 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,029 feet.

©️ 2021 Scott Luria