River Tales

Jeff and I had a great trip down the Mississippi River covering a stretch upstream from Brainerd.

Wildlife along the River. The terrain changed dramatically during the 30 mile trip: rocks and small stones the first 10 miles, sand the next 10 and farmland with dirt/mud banks the last 10. As we neared Aitkin, the end of our trip, there were many dairy farms with pastures that allowed the dairy cows to walk to the river and drink. Cattle are pretty docile and didn't seem to care much about us floating by.

Nine miles upstream from Aitkin is the River's only diversion dam. In the early 1900s, the town of Aitkin was flooded twice and this dam was then constructed. It is an "overflow" dam that diverts the water around the town; once it reaches a certain height it flows over the dam into a manmade diversion channel. The dam is two stages with a slightly higher dam, a dip area, and then a lower secondary dam. It was constructed of boulders encased in cement. The purpose of the two dams is probably to slow the water flow.


There were constantly deadheads, dead trees, in the water to paddle around and many sandbars and rock outcroppings due to the low water, typical for August. The water was very clean and we used my Katadyn water filter pump to fill our water bottles. It filters out bacteria and sediment and the water tasted very good. Since we had no portages or rapids we loaded up the canoe with a lot of food and clothing, might was well be comfortable. It rained on our morning trip up, but not at all while we were on the River. Day one was cloudy and day two sunny to partly cloudy,
There are designated campsites about every 25 miles along the Upper Miss, maintained by the Minnesota DNR. This was the one we stayed at. It had been freshly mowed and had a table, laterine, and a large fairly flat area for tents. It set up on a high bank overlooking the River bend.

We saw deer, ducks, cows :-), fish, a bald eagle (no photo) and this bird which we believe was a Golden Eagle, or possibly a young Bald Eagle. It was brown and didn' t have the traditional Bald Eagle markings of a white head, tail and yellow beak. We chased it up the River for many miles. It was a very large bird whatever it was.

Small mouth bass
Bigger small mouth, bass 14 inches in length, weight uncertain. The bass loved the Shad lures, a fake minnow with a flippy tail and single hook.
Northern Pike, tons o fun to catch, mighty fighters. Red and white daredevils always work, and did in the Miss. All fish we caught were released.
An old railroad bridge showing how low the water was. About 10 feet below the recent Spring level it appeared.
Unloading at Palisade at the start of our trip, 30 miles up from Aitkin. The first day we covered 7 river miles, the second day the fishing slowed and we made good time so got in 23 river miles. Our choice for a second night campsite was unaccessible due to erosion so we went on into Aitkin, went into town for pizza and headed home to our nice soft beds. I think I am getting way too old for many more nights of sleeping on the ground :-) .

The weather was perfect for canoeing with daytime temps in the 60s, while scattered frost was predicted we are not sure how cold it was at night, but we were warm in our sleeping bags sleeping in sox and t-shirts. We surprisingly only saw one other boat on the River. No bugs on the water, wind at our backs 90 % of the time, and the fishing was better than we thought, a great trip to end the summer!