Coop's Corner: 3 Parks On The St. Croix River

Thursday, August 13, 2020

3 Parks On The St. Croix River

Though we live along the Mississippi River now, I have a long history with the St. Croix River. The St. Croix joins the Miss just east of the Twin Cities, both rivers together form most of the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Today I visited 3 of the Minnesota State Parks that are on the St. Croix.

By Kmusser - Self-made, based on USGS data., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2206422

Boom Site, just north of Stillwater, my first stop. Spent a lot of time here with friends as a 20-something. Swimming, exploring, etc.

The park has changed a lot over 60 years and yes, I do remember it in 1960. Our family camped here a lot, close to our suburban home on a Friday afternoon.

When I was a youngster, there was a bridge here that led to a trail that looped the island, seen here across this narrow channel. We walked that loop trail many times. There was some sand, a very small 'beach', lots of current and drop-offs but we swam here, many did. Lake Alice, the current backwater lake/swimming beach was marshland the way I remember it and now is a much, much safer place to swim. That bridge was here for a number of years, not sure how many but it flooded out often. What and how things are presented at the State Parks has changed over time.

Remember the rock just outside the campground mom?? I'm sure that it was twice this tall back in the 60's. We left a lot of sticky handprints I'm sure. The sign told me today that it weighs 20 tons, must have been a good 40 or so back then.

Looking out past the northerly tip of the island out to the main channel and Wisconsin beyond.

I used to park my car here and walk the old Soo Line Railroad tracks north up to the swing bridge that spanned the river just south of Osceola. When this rail line was put in, paddleboats were still plying the river as far as Osceola, or attempting to, necessitating a swinging bridge. A swinging bridge meant an attendant on site. This is the same line that ran east from here to Barron and beyond finally reaching all the way to Montreal. On the Minnesota side of the river there was a water tank, the footings were still there when I walked it (many black/white photos here somewhere). Gramp knew this line and heard from the engineers that they filled their boilers from that tank when possible because the soft(er) water burned so much better in the steamers, "....better steam...".

Insterstate State Park, the Minnesota version. Wisconsin has its own Interstate State Park, right across the river. Here another CCC building of which there are many like in the MN Park system. I started off with the picnic area and some lunch and then moved up to the potholes and rocks.

Meanwhile on the Wisconsin side of the park.....

Only one canoe visible....

A snack in Taylors Falls and then north up to Wild River State Park.

The trail from the parking lot out to the river....

What a day!!!

So many memories, reminders of truly how much time I once spent in this area. Friends, girl friends, motorcycle trips and friends......For as anchored as I feel down along the Mississippi in the southern part of the state, I have a bundle of history up along the National Wild and Scenic River. Seeing it all again today triggered so, so many memories. Had they been questions on a multiple choice test, I'd have remembered but an essay test?? I wonder....

Campion's in Marine-On-St. Croix, flying with engineer George in the plane I rented to take photos, canoe trips with Steve and crew, canoe trips with others, canoe trips with my wife, picnics with Peg and the kids, motorcycling with Central Roadracing partner Bruce....we made numerous late, late night trips out to the Sunrise area, his teacher friends, Gene, Monica...; he had a friend there with a cabin. The entire area that now makes up Wild River State Park was once land owned/managed by Northern States Power and that's because there were power dams, or the potential for more power dams on the river. Some sort of alliance between the power company and the state gave us the State Park.

It was much the same over in Wisconsin for Willow River State Park. That area once had 3 dams producing power on Willow River. When we were Boy Scouts, we camped right where the current State Park campground is now and had to get permission from NSP to do so, long before any of it was developed.

Well that's it for today's trip, another Grand Day Out. It's late and I've only got a vague idea about what may happen tomorrow. I doubt that it will start before dawn however.

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"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)