- The mighty Mississippi looks a little different up North than it does in Southern Minnesota.

We're gonna be exploring the headwaters of this amazing river.

Starting at Pine Point and heading to Iron Bridge.

Let's go Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - All right, here, we are.

Not far from the headwaters of the Mississippi river and also not far from Bemidji, Minnesota, just a few miles out of town, really.

It turned into a beautiful day.

It was thunder storming and thick overcast an hour and a half ago.

And now it's blue skies and puffy clouds and the heat is starting to turn up and yeah, I'm pretty excited.

It's gonna be a good day to be on the water.

(upbeat music) This is where we take out.

Not where we're putting in, but we're parking our cars here because we do a shuttle, which is always a part of the river trip.

(upbeat music) - We're just gonna, dash on down and then come up this one and pop right in here.

That's it.

- That works.

- Yap.

- I should have brought... - Hey I'm Brenda.

- Brenda, Mark, very nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Preston.

- Nice to see you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Tim, nice to meet you.

- Okay, Mark, Preston, Tim and Tori.

- Tori.

- My name's Emi.

- Hi, nice to meet you.

So you guys are all loaded up?

- Yeah.

- We were loaded up.

(upbeat music) - Hey, hey, wait, I'm sorry.

What was your name again?

- Nathan.

- Nathan.

Alright, here we go.

Everybody wave.

- Oh, this will be fun.

- How far are we going?

- I'm just looking at this map.

We're really just driving about a 10, 12 mile.

We're doing about an eight and a half nine mile stretch.

Mostly forested, yeah.

We're kind of above the, kind of the agricultural land and stuff like that.

Where it's kind of in the Mississippi headwaters.

- Okay.

Yeah, how are the, button's gonna to be out there today?

- Well, I've heard, that there have been some flies biting this time of year.

But try not to think about it too much.

- Yeah.

So what else can we expect to see out there today?

- We may see some eagles or some osprey up in the trees.

It's good to of keep your eyes open.

- We're gonna see a tone of painted turtles.

- Painted turtles out in the logs - Any snapping turtles?

Cause I have a fear of snapping turtles.

- I know what I wanna see.

- Okay, wait, what do you wanna see?

- I wanna see a Beaver.

- Nice.

- Or a black bear.

I'm kind of doubting the black bear.

- We can see a black bear.

- Go straight, go straight on the dirt.

- Right where it's muddy?

- Go straight on the dirt, I've done this before.

(laughs) It's been a few years, but I remember this one.

- Deal.

- Look, a black squirrel.

- So what are the river levels like today?

- They're not high.

It's getting a little bit grass here out there.

So the river will be slow moving, but there's plenty of volume.

- Okay, so what about the big storm this morning?

Does that affect it like that?

- I don't think.

Everything up here is wet lands.

So there's this really, it's just sort of this effect of sort of buffering that rainfall.

- I noticed that as a pretty narrow path.

- Could be a narrow channel.

- Any chances we'll get lost off in the little side shoots.

- You stay with the main current is the trick.

What I like to do is look at the grass as, look down into the current, you can see where that grass is moving and follow kind of the dominant stream.

And it'll take you where you wanna go.

- I like that.

- Go with the flow.

- Go with the flow.

(upbeat music) Can you put... show me on the map where we're gonna go?

- Yeah.

So we went from the midget.

We parked ourself at... - Mark says he's down for a tentative... - Iron Bridge.

That's where we're parked.

- Okay.

- We dashed over to Pine Point, kind of came around and we're starting here.

So we're gonna do this little stretch of river forest.

- Excellent.

(upbeat music) - Everyone just come bounding out all happy and excited.

(laughs) - Exactly.

Bounding, that's a good word.

- Bounding out.

- You know, that's not really my personality.

- I know.

It's why I said it.

- I'm just such a ray of sunshine.

- Just a bit of water, if you want to take a water... - I think that's the only thing anyone's ever said about you, Tori.

- That I'm a ray of sunshine?

- we're gonna find a channel if we're traveling out this way.

- Well, where's the river?

- It's like this big thing here.

And then we've just gotta find that main middle channel.

- It's just like the cattails are gonna part, as we go, magically?

- It's like walking through a corn field.

- Yeah, it is.

- Well, what happens is the river kind of will go to the outside of each turn.

So it'll put more volume as you go around outside.

So that's typically where you'll find like the channels as they'll go to the outside.

- Okay.

- Because the river is always cutting the channel and depositing stuff as you go.

So it'll make these little oxbow turns and things and some of them stall out and then it goes that way.

But the river is always meandering and wandering here.

- Okay.

- So you have to think like... - So we're gonna go in and never gonna go that way to the right.

- Yeah, this is all foot though, off we go.

You just have to think like a water.

- Yeah, we're going to lose each other.

Do you have like any animal calls we can use in case we get lost in there?

Like any bird calls?

(barks) - That's what my kids do.

(howls) (upbeat music) - And down this way (upbeat music) - Wow, look at him.

Flash lightning.

(upbeat music) - Which one has the GoPro clamp on it?

Out of curiosity.

(upbeat music) Here we are, at Pine Point.

we are gonna head on down the Mississippi river and get our adventure started.

It kind of became overcast here in about the last 15 minutes, which actually was pretty good.

- Better light and a little cooler.

- Better light and a little cooler.

- I'm not getting better, are you?

- No.

- No.

So the name of the game is , we're snooping around for current.

- Okay.

- We're looking for where the current lives.

You gotta think like a river.

- Think like a river.

How does a river think?

- "I gotta to go down, working my way."

- That's simple, I like it, I can do that.

- Yeah, think like a drop of water.

- Aw, look at how pretty you look against all the cattails.

Is this sandy?

- Yeah.

I'll help you.

- Oh, it's a little cool around the lake water.

- I got you from here.

- Okay.

- Wait.

- I'll just bring it to you.

- Where are you going with my kayak?

Bring it back.

This is a game of chase the kayak down the river.

These (mumbles) are made for fishing.

- I'm excited to try it.

I was actually looking at... - Yeah, you might... - So this is a really good chance to just check it out.

- Good.

(upbeat music) - Okay.

(upbeat music) - You all set?

- I think we are.

Just start snooping for current.

(laughs) (upbeat music) Let's take the jungle approach.

- We go flying by.

- All right, we're on the river, it's official and this is pretty cool.

It's very narrow and rather grassy.

(upbeat music) So yeah, just figuring out where the river is today.

That's gonna be the trick.

Be like a water droplet and just go downstream.

It's a little challenging to paddle.

To say the least.

(upbeat music) This will be the perfect place for a really sweet game of hide and seek on the river.

(upbeat music) A little Marco Polo, little kayak, Marco Polo.

(upbeat music) Oh wait, I see the end of the tunnel.

(upbeat music) This is pretty awesome.

- Isn't this beautiful?

- Yeah, this is pretty cool.

- So we always know there's trail ahead, if we just follow the bent over blades of grass.

- Okay, well actually the best way is to just follow you.

- Okay.

- Water droplets, stick together.

- Yeah.

- Kind of tricky to paddle through all these tall grasses.

- Switching around, you wanna see a poll?

Here's the channel, you see that?

(upbeat Music) Oh, how lovely?

Not too bright and sunny.

I think that's nice.

- Hey, look at this.

All right, here we are.

- This way to the headwaters.

- The Mississippi River headwaters.

- And this way is the Gulf of Mexico.

- Yeah, should we go to the Gulf?

How long is that gonna take?

- I could tell you, we have people every year who come up to do the entire river.

- Oh yeah?

- We've had people swim the Mississippi canoes, kayaks, a big robot One guy wanted to bring him like a whitewater raft.

You can imagine he was a raft guide from the Colorado River.

- Don't you have people swim the whole thing?

- Swim it, yeah, there was a guy.

He was in the military and he showed up with two black like duffel bags and darn if he didn't swim the entire river.

Jumped in with a wet suit and swam.

- That's impressive.

I'm not really sure I would want to swim through this.

- Oh, I'll do it for you right now.

- Really?

- Sure.

- Game on.

Take your mic off first though.

- What happens to a lot of people is they show up with tons of gear, tons of gear, like they're provisioned for a long trip.

And I tell them "You're gonna have to lighten up your gear because you're gonna be walking at the upper stretches."

And they just have too much stuff.

They got guitars and they got like buckets full of food.

And it's like, you're gonna have so much weight that you're not gonna be able to move.

- Well, guitars might be important for your emotional mental stability on the river.

- I mean, as soon as you get to Bemidji, everything gets bigger.

- Honestly, I love this kind of environment more.

It's just, it's more fun, it's interesting, it's a high turn.

- This is the start, the infant Mississippi River.

It's amazing.

- Look how clear it is here.

- That's what I mean by swimming.

I think it would be fun.

- Yeah, well, aside from all those weeds and bloodsuckers and... - Oh, I think it would be a riot to swim.

(chuckles) - No, actually it's it is amazingly clear right here.

I don't see any little fishies though.

- I boxed you out.

- Yeah you're boxing me in.

- I boxed you out.

That's like a dirty trick in canoe racing right there.

- Yeah, what the heck?

- You know, all the dirty tricks... - We are supposed to be on the same team.

Lots of cocktails, lots of tall grasses to be a pretty cool visual from overhead.

- Beautiful from overhead.

I've always, wanted an aerial shot of this type of travel.

It kind of stays a lot like this.

Like I said, the rain comes and then all this wet land absorbs it and then it sort of discharges it over the season.

- Yeah.

- And that's the beauty of wetlands, right?

Cleans and sort of moderates the water flow.

But the grass will grow into the channels more.

- Hey, hey, you need to work on your streaming skills there.

- Yeah, I'm really quite all right, very good.

- What do you have against me here?

- Yeah, I keep crowding into the corners.

- Look at these little things.

What are these little flowers?

I like these little pink flowers here.

(upbeat music) - So Preston, what kind of art do you do?

- I'm a printmaker.

I like doing mostly wood cuts and some drawings, about a lot of architectural based images like buildings and windows and historic structures.

- Okay.

(background chatter) So why architecture, what draws you to architecture?

- I just always enjoyed the manmade structure.

Mainly what I do when I'm dealing with those architectural images is show mans, the history of the building or the weathering of the building and the structure.

So a lot of civic sculpture, pieces that are out in parks and things.

- Okay.

- So, that's what interests me.

- Do you have any favorite piece that you've worked on?

- I've got a piece right now, that I'm just finished.

It's called "Pentimento."

It's an image of a ghost sign.

I'm doing these ghost signs that are old painted structures that have weathered.

And this one is a building in Winona and it's made out of 1600 bricks that are then drawn and the mortar is put into them and then the painting part is on the surface.

So when you look at it, it's very dimensional.

You really feel... - Did you actually do like the detail of the 1600 bricks in the wood cut?

- All 1600 bricks.

The bricks are about the size of a chiclet or a small piece of gum.

- That must take you forever.

I worked on that piece about a year.

- Wow.

Yeah, you could only do that for so long each evening.

- That's true.

- So are you feeling inspired today?

- Definitely so.

Oh, this has been a beautiful paddle.

I'm amazed, certainly at how quiet it is.

Whenever you look across at these weeds and cattails and things, it's hard to tell is that all water or if you get 10 feet in there, is there some kind of land?

And I think as we've run some canoes up into that area, it is water.

It's the area up here in the Northern parts of Minnesota are very flat.

So I'm able to see this kind of thin stream of panoramic weeds and cattails and undergrowth, and then the beautiful sky and the clouds that have been changing the whole day as we've been paddling, so... (upbeat music) - Follow the same direction that's a grass is laying.

That's what they say, that's what mark says.

(upbeat music) - This part is pretty cool.

- Yeah, I think we just followed a shorter little turn and now we're back into the main channel.

- Oh, did we get actually get off the channel a little bit?

- Well, it's like, there's multiple channels and they take you to the same place.

It's like one oxbow will, give way to another turn, sometimes.

- It'd be really fun to see an overhead, aerial and then a little red dotted line of where we actually went.

(guitar music) I suppose this is how the Mississippi works.

Just slightly gets wider and wider and wider.

- Yeah, it just keeps more... - So at what point does it stop getting wider.

- More and more tributaries.

I think it's just, I mean, it's an enormous watershed, so it just keeps taking... - Just keep building and growing?

- Yap, until it's like, you know, miles wide and you got bars traffic and locks and dams.

- Can you imagine the things that this river has seen over the years?

- Yeah, that's why it's so special up here.

It's amazing, it's what people can see.

More people could see it this way.

- Right.

(upbeat music) Well, once Mark is off his phone.

- I'm just checking timeline.

- Then we can chat with him.

(laughs) - So what do you do at the university?

- I have been charged with the outdoor program and all the aquatics.

So I'm in charge of the lifeguards and swim lessons, sailing instruction, climbing instruction.

We do winter activities like skiing.

I teach folders first Aid and life guarding and climbing instructor courses, things like that.

- Nice - I teach a CPR class.

So a lot of variety, and kind of changes with the seasons.

And I get to work with great young people, like these three here today.

And it's so much fun, lots of fun.

- To keep you young at heart.

- Yeah, we're always playing.

Like we got, we're taking out, a day, like this is typical or teaching kids to swim.

It's really rewarding.

I really believe in adventure education for people.

- So are you as much into the winter activities as the summer?

- Yeah, I'm a skier, a ski patroller and cross country skier and scoomer and all that kind of stuff.

We have great fun up here in the winter.

- Okay.

- Yeah, how would you describe the Bemidji area?

Like how would you describe this area in general.

- Oh, it's very, we love having the access to all these quiet little lakes that people can fish or paddle or swim and people have their little homes and cabins and it's classic kind of vacation country, but it's not that busy.

- Yeah.

- It's not that much over cooked with tourism yet.

I mean, it's just right.

It's wonderful, you can paddle, like we can spend a day like this and it feels like we're on some remote wilderness trip and we're just a short drive from downtown.

- Yeah, sure, I mean, we've seen nobody today.

- Yeah, so I appreciate that.

It's not like lots and lots of developed tourism here.

It's it's really people come up for the woods in the lakes, skiing in the winter and fishing.

One time I was driving down the airport with my son, it's Memorial Day, we're going on our climbing trip.

And everybody had their boats and trailers and they're all coming up to like, to visit where we live, you know.

Just to get a weekend at the cabin or something.

So we enjoy that.

- Nice.

You don't have to go anywhere.

You're right here.

Yep, trying to keep it nice for the next generations, you know.

(upbeat music) - I feel like normally when I've been out here, I usually see like red wing black birds or something like clinging to the top of these other things and then normally check them, but I can't see them.

I can kind of hear something over there.

(upbeat music) - Did, you know, bears mark trees using their teeth and claws as a form of communication with other bears?

Let's learn more from Clarissa Schrooten at Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo.

(upbeat music) - We have one type of bear here in the state of Minnesota, and that is the black bear.

Black bears are found mostly in the northeast part of Minnesota and that coniferous forest that we have in our state.

Black bears can sometimes be also different colors.

Most of the time they have the black fur, with a tan muzzle, but sometimes their rest of their fur, can end up being brown.

Sometimes even a cinnamon color, sometimes even blonde.

And there are the very rare white, black bears.

Now the tips that I'll give you to identify a black bear.

Their ears are a lot more rounded and very large for their head.

And when they walk, you'll notice that their back is straight across where a grizzly bear would have a hump on their shoulders.

A black bear has a very straight nose to forehead, whereas a grizzly bear has more of a scoop shape.

So grizzly bear could actually carry around a bowl of fruits loops on its nose, whereas a black bear, the nose to forehead is to flat that it would fall off.

Even though the black bear would be the one more likely to eat the fruit loops.

I'm Clarissa Schrooten from Oxbow Park and Zollman Zoo.

And I encourage everyone to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

(water whooshes) - Yeah, we're spoiled rotten.

It's beautiful here.

- Picked up a little headwind.

Yeah, now the breeze is blowing around on us.

- My name is Preston Lawing.

I'm an artist, a print maker and a maker.

I'm a professor of art at St. Mary's University, here in Minnesota, down in Winona.

I was very fortunate to have parents that were supportive of my drawing and coloring and painting and that kind of thing.

I did go to college to be an art education major at Appalachian State.

I've experimented with a variety of different mediums.

As an artist, you always want to try what's going on and see if it's a good fit.

When I discovered printmaking with several printmaking professors, it was a great opportunity to show the process.

When you're painting, you might paint six months on a painting and all you see is that final painting.

In print making, you do a, a section, you do a proof, you print it, you change it, you erase parts, you add more.

So process is the interest to me in printmaking.

I love being in Minnesota and using the outdoors.

We hike and have canoed before, do a lot of bike riding.

And this was a great opportunity to be able to go up to the headwaters.

I've never been in the Bemidji area.

The piece that I'm doing now, I wanted to translate as many of those experiences into it as possible.

I'm always interested in what we see and what's behind the scenes.

So this particular image, when you first see it, it's a landscape with a beautiful cloud filled sky.

And the more you really look at it and it's quiet and it's serene and there's no one there.

And it's a very peaceful type of thing.

When the piece opens, it's a triptych, which is three panels that work individually or, but together.

When it opens, it's kind of a shadow box with a lot of different multiple levels of all the people that came together to make this experience happen.

It's interesting to see all of those people getting their job done, but they're all basically behind the camera.

So when we see something as a beautiful image, we don't think of all the work that goes on behind the scenes.

Art has opened up my vision of the world in a number of different ways.

I've always been a very visual person.

So I'm the one that usually points out a crack in the sidewalk with a flower that's coming up or the cloud that's shaped a certain way.

My wife and daughter are, I think, more visually attuned because of that.

And that's something that I really hope that my students understand and learn and train their eye to see better.

- So everybody else has, kind of gotten ahead of me right here and I'm back here by myself and it's just incredibly serene and peaceful.

And you can hear the breeze blowing through the cattails and birds chirping around me, and the sky is sort of dramatic looking with big open patches of blue sky and some darker looking clouds kind of swirling around.

It's rather magical.

(country music) Hey, we made it to the end of the marshy maze.

Until next time, let's go Minnesota.

That was fun.

- Yeah.

(splash, screams) - Are you okay?

- Almost.

We jinxed it.

- That's right.

Only one.

(laughs) Did you get that?

(upbeat music) - Great to experience different parts of Minnesota.

- Yeah, when I first came up here, I'm from Minneapolis.

They were like, "Hey, come see the Mississippi."

I'm like, "It's not the Mississippi, this is a creek."

- Yeah, where are the steamboats?

- So we were talking about how quiet it is, but then like... the grass is very loud, if that makes sense.

Like, you can hear how loud the grasses are, all these tall cattails and stuff running into each other.

It's kind of funny.

Cause you would never like think of grass as being loud.

Ever.

- I didn't really have like a huge, like, huge appreciation for like country and stuff until I moved to Minnesota and heard a lot more of like the folk music and like, that's the music you hear when you're like out in the water.

Like when you're driving like up the North Shore by all the cliffs and like Lake Superior.

And then you hear all this and like, "Man, a fiddle sounds good.

And man, a mandolin sounds real good up here."

And you start really loving that like little twang a little bit.

- I grew up being afraid of like rivers and stuff down South.

So like I'm just like hanging out, looking around, just expecting to see like little eyeballs pop out of the water for like gators or something.

(upbeat music) - Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music)