By Tim Krohn
For 11 days in early July, readers followed a canoe voyage down the 330-mile length of the Minnesota River taken by Free Press writer Tim Krohn and photographer John Cross.
Interest in the trip was intense, a reflection of the growing awareness about the state of and potential for a river once dubbed one of the nation’s most polluted.
The voyage was a repeat of one the pair took 10 years earlier.
Attention to the river spiked in the early 1990s when then-Gov. Arne Carlson stood on the banks of the river in Mankato and called for a major 10-year reclamation effort. Hundreds of millions of dollars were pumped into river improvements, including construction of new wastewater plants in most cities along the river and a major effort that permanently retired 100,000 acres of fragile farmland in the river valley.
River improvement groups have flourished, including the Montevideo-based CURE and New Ulm-based Coalition for a Clean Minnesota River, and counties and watershed groups have created alliances to control erosion, runoff and other pollutants.
The Minnesota River changes dramatically on its journey to the Mississippi River at St. Paul. At the South Dakota border, the river winds through a series of massive marshes and lakes, including Big Stone Lake, Marsh Lake and Lac qui Parle lake, with wildlife abundant and development sparse.
The Granite Falls and Redwood Falls areas present spectacular granite outcroppings above the river and the rich farmland dominates as the river moves through the heart of southern Minnesota.
As the river approaches Belle Plaine, Chaska and Bloomington the urban development is extensive, but the river remains somewhat isolated thanks to the national wildlife refuge that surrounds the river in the south metro.
Krohn and Cross transmitted stories and photos of their trip daily to The Free Press. Since the trip they’ve spoken to dozens of groups in southern Minnesota about the river and their experiences. (The photos and stories are at www.mankatofreepress.com)
The river was part of another voyage this year as recent high school graduates Colton Witte and Sean Bloomfield of Chaska made a 2,500 paddle in just 49 days. The pair started in the Twin Cities, paddled up the Minnesota, down the Red River, and into Canada where they finished the trip in Hudson Bay.
The trip retraced one taken by journalist Eric Sevareid and a partner 75 years earlier, and recounted in Sevareid’s book “Canoeing with the Cree.”
