One of my goals during the raising of our children was to take them to the beginning of the Mississippi which is located at Lake Itasca. A few of the landmarks I think anyone living in Minnesota should see include Lake Superior and the North Shore, The Minnesota State Fair, Minneapolis and St Paul, and where the Mighty Mississippi River begins. As we continued on our quest to complete our National Parks Monopoly board I began to run out of time to experience the Mississippi headwaters with the children and was thinking this wouldn’t happen. Fortunately there was a portion of the summer with no travel plans and we decided to add Voyageurs National Park to our board which was not all that far from Itasca State Park where this large river begins.

Leaving Voyageurs late in the afternoon we arrived at Itasca State Park at sunset to a porcupine crossing the road in front of us. That seemed like a good omen to begin this portion of our journey. Getting to our campsite at dark made it a bit more challenging to set up the tent and get everything ready so we could sleep but eventually we were successful and grabbed a snack before crawling into the sleeping bags for some much needed rest before a full day of exploring this area boasting the start of the Mississippi. Unfortunately it was a cool night with temperatures falling into the 40’s Fahrenheit making it a little difficult to get a good nights rest but we eventually emerged from the tent, grabbed some food and headed out with the first stop the Headwaters Visitors Center.

By the time we arrived at this river crossing it was mid-day and there were a lot of people exploring this start to one of the longest rivers in the world. This made it a bit of a challenge to grab some family photos so we watched as many other people along with our children ventured across the rocks or through the water to add walking across the Mississippi to their list of accomplishments with the goal of returning at a quieter time. I did take a few photos at this visit to the headwaters just in case plans changed and we became unable to get here with a smaller crowd. Even with all of the other people exploring around here it was fun to think about how far this water will travel and how long it will take for the water we were walking in to reach the ocean so far away. Fortunately we did make it back the next day after the visitors center closed so there were a lot fewer people.

With less people we set up the camera and took a few family photos for memories and then played in the water a little more without worry about causing issues with other visitors. To get to the beginning of the Might Mississippi you have to park at the visitor center and walk a short distance to the lake and this small river. Hard to imagine the Mississippi as a small river. I’ve grown up visiting this river often a little further south watching as barges moved cargo up and down it and couldn’t imagine it being a small river to walk across at some point. There are a few other locations in the state park where you can walk or drive across the little Mississippi which we did to fully take in this idea. One thing that always seemed weird to me was this river flows north for a ways before finally turning south. The land here is a high point so everything flows away in several directions which is why the beginning of the Mississippi River runs Northward before the ground gets lower allowing the water to return to a normal direction of flow going south. There’s a webcam set up to view the headwaters if you’re interested in viewing it live. Mississippi Headwaters Webcam