Daily Archives: August 15, 2010

What I had for brunch: A Trip to Bitch Lake

Amanda next to the tallest white pine tree in Minnesota

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p class=”lead”>They say Lake Itasca is the source of the Mississippi. This is why there is a big state park surrounding the lake, a park that preserves some beautiful old forest despite the best efforts of 19th century lumberjacks to cut it down.

I’ve been to Itasca a number of times, and I’ve even done archaeological research there (which didn’t turn out to be very interesting). But when I went to Itasca last week, it was my first visit with no work agenda, and I got to spend more time poking around and seeing the sights. I was visiting because Amanda was recruited to run demos for the research lab she has been working in for the incoming bio grad students (who are all sent to the forest the summer before they start), and she got to bring me. So I drove over from the cabin.

There surely were much larger trees in this state before the lumberjacks killed them all, but at the moment, the tallest white pine is here at Itasca. I’ve seen taller white pines, but this one is pretty impressive and, of course, its tallness is impossible to photograph.

The tallest red pine is supposedly in this park as well, but I’m not so sure. If you look at it (picture below) it seems to be missing it’s top. In comparing the drawing of this red pine tree on the plaque commemorating its tallosity to the actual tree, I’d say there is about 22 feet missing.

Supposedly tallest red pine.

But what about this source of the Mississippi thing?

Well, this is kind of interesting. Lake Itasca was firmly established as the source of the Mississippi in 1889. This was over 80 years after the source of the Missouri was established. The source of the Nile was established at this level of certainty (though it was earlier claimed) in 1871. And with the source of the Mississippi what, less than an hour from the cabin, how could this have been established so late in the game? The city of Bemidji, just down stream from Itasca, on the river, was incorporated in 1896!!!!

Lake Itasca is shaped like a giant tuning fork. The fishing here isn’t bad.

I’m not going to bore you with the details of this story, nor am I going to support any one of the possible arguments that one could lay out about what the source of that great river that flows into the Gulf of Mexico really is. But I will give you a few interesting tidbits to chew on.

First, at the large scale, consider the Missouri river. Where the Missouri and the Mississippi river combine, they are pretty much the same size: Big-ass. The Mississippi, on an average day, is larger, but the Missouri floods are much much larger, so on average, it might be difficult to pick one vs. the other as the main river vs. the tributary. If straightness (the Missouri makes a turn into the Mississippi) was a factor, well, fine, but there are plenty of rivers where the straight one is the short one and the less straight partner is the longer river with the greatest flow.

Visitors to the outlet of Itasca enjoy pretending to be the coolest thing this side of the Mississippi. Or no, THAT side of the Mississippi. No, wait, THIS side of the Mississippi. And so on, until they get hungry and walk up the trail to the gift shop and restaurant newly built.

Some of this may have to do with the fact that the Mississippi flows south, “down map” for much of it’s course, while the Missouri comes in at an angle, “across map.” That seems strange, but it matters to some people. Note, for instance, that the Mississippi up here in Minnesota makes a big question mark (or, as some say, a fishing hook). It flows out of Itasca to the north, and eventually wanders eastward, then southward, then westward, then southward again. This is so enigmatic to so many visitors to the state park that there is actually an educational exhibit explaining how the Mississippi River flows ‘up map’ for a while. Can you believe that?

This is the sort of thing that makes me laugh when people extol the great abilities of the human mind.

Here’s another point. Here in Minnesota, there are multiple lakes that were originally suggested as the source of the Mississippi, and in fact, this is where the confusion has occurred causing this issue to be settled so late. We now understand that the local people, mainly Native Americans but also some African Americans, French (prior to their expulsion and subsequent widespread mispronunciation from the state) and the mixed ethnic offspring of these presottans, knew where Itasca was … it was not ‘discovered’ by Henry Schoolcraft when he first visited Itasca in 1832 (thus beginning the debate over which lake was the source). But this origin question was more of interest to European types who had been fighting out similar issues elsewhere in the world, and who had taken to using rivers as boundaries rather than as central themes in their cultural geography.

Just last week, this happened: Amanda and I were driving around the lake, and we pulled over to look up some plants and watch some birds. So there we were gazing across a stream passing through a marsh opening into Itasca. The stream was an outlet from another lake behind us. Another lake. Upstream from Itasca. So why was that lake, known today as Elk Lake, not the source of the Mississippi?

It’s complicated, and the short answer is that this part of Minnesota is a giant swamp with some parts of the swamp being more open water (those are the lakes) and some being less open (those are the forests). The real source of the Mississippi is either some muddy stream uphill (like by nine inches) from Itasca, or it is simply this entire quagmire taken as a whole.

What about the name “Itasca”? All these names up in these parts are either French or Native. The French names are always butchered as part of a deep seated hatred Minnesotans have of the French. For instance, the following lake: Lac l’homme Dieu (Lake of the god-man?) is pronounced as follows:

Lake La Hama Doo.

Mississippi means “Father of Waters” down in the state of Mississippi, but here in Minnesota (which means either “sky colored” or “muddy” waters) it is said to mean “Great Waters.”

Itasca is, however, different. Neither Native nor French, it is from the Latin, derived from the words veritas and caput (truth and head … the true head). This name was provided by the ‘discoverer’ Schoolcraft. I suppose it started with:

Veritascaput

And then they played around with it for a while: ritascap … veritascapu … ascaput … itascap … itasca. Itasca! That one sounds Indian, by jove, we’ll use that one!

But as you may imagine, the lake was not always named Itasca. It already had an Indian name or two. Could have been worse. The lake I mentioned before, Elk Lake, was for a while named Lake Glazier, after some guy named Glazier, who claimed that … ah let’s see … right, Lake Glazier is the source of the Mississippi. He also drew maps of Lake Glazier and Itasca, and in his maps, Glazier (Elk) is much larger than it is in real life.

Omashkoozo-zaaga’igan is the original native name, Ojibwe, for, wait for it … Elk Lake. So Elk Lake became True Head Lake and Glazier Lake became Elk Lake.

But .. in between being called Omashkoozo and being called Itasca, it was called …

LOL

… La Biche.

And what, you may ask, is this word from French, “La Biche”? I’ll bet a lot of French speaking people are not sure, but I’ll tell you. It means Elk (female elk, to be exact). It was Elk Lake!

So, you may ask, are there Elk in Itasca Park? There were. In the 19th century, Itasca was well inside of wild Elk range. Today the nearest wild Elk is about 75 miles north. (There are of course “domestic” elk here and there … we eat them now and then.)

Itasca is nice. If you are ever in the neighborhood, do try to drop in. And if you do, stop by the cabin, we’ll cook up some elk burgers.


For more blog posts about the wilds of northern Minnesota check out “Notes from the North Country

Photos by the author.

The Magpie in the Mirror

ResearchBlogging.orgA typical adult human recognizes that the image one sees in a mirror is oneself. We do not know how much training a mirror-naive adult requires to do this, but we think very little.

When a typical adult macaque (a species of monkey) looks in the mirror, it sees another monkey. Typical adult male macaques stuck in a cage with a mirror will treat the image as a fellow adult male macaque until you take the mirror out of the cage.

(Experiments that attempt to determine if an individual can recognize themselves in the mirror ultimately derive from what is known as the Gallup Test, after Gordon Gallup, who first painted spots on the foreheads of primates to see which individuals .. of which species … figure out that you can inspect one’s own forehead by looking at one’s face in the mirror.)

A typical adult chimpanzee will be startled by the mirror on first encountering it, or show curiosity, maybe exhibit bewilderment. But within a very short period of time, the chimpanzee will realize that this is an image of self.

A chimpanzee that understands that this is an image of self will use the mirror to inspect his or her own body, to see things never seen before, will identify bits of lint or paint stuck to the face and groom them away, and so on. Placed with a group of mirror-naive chimpanzees, the chimp that understands mirrors already may try to freak out the other chimps by showing it the mirror. They seem to get a kick out of this.

Magpies do this too.

Continue reading The Magpie in the Mirror

Size and Scaling in Hominid Evolution

ResearchBlogging.orgStephen Jay Gould and David Pilbeam wrote a paper in 1974 that was shown ten years later to be so totally wrong in its conclusions that it has fallen into an obscurity not usually linked to either Gould or Pilbeam. However, they were actually right in ways that they could not have anticipated. And even if they were not right, this paper still has much to contribute, including the opening words of that publication in Science, which are very much worthy of consideration for many reasons:

i-019aa89e74f87750754374ffc1a271c4-pilbeam_gould_01.jpg

Continue reading Size and Scaling in Hominid Evolution