Our river

A weekend’s worth of adventure along the Mississippi

by

On my dad’s side of the family, it’s simply “the river.”

“How’s the river?” “Is the river down?” What we mean is the Mississippi.

My father, his father and his father were raised next to the upper Mississippi, Wisconsin’s western border. Dad worked on it briefly. My grandfather worked on it his whole life. Great-great-uncle Jack helped build steamboats. It’s said that he could lay out the spokes of a paddlewheel without measuring, simply by eye.

My family worked on the sternwheelers Alert, Fury and General Allen. I was raised on a diet of obscure steamboat terms: pitman, transom, ’scape pipe and the delightfully named monkey rudders. I know that, on a steamboat, a “bucket” is not what you normally think of. Nor is a “doctor,” and you damn well better watch it for mud as you fill the boilers.

Mark Twain called our portion of the river “the true Sunset Land: I am sure no other country can show so good a right to the name.”

And upper Mississippi sunsets are best seen from the Wisconsin side’s shores.

I would like to share with you my love of the river. From Dubuque to Fountain City, the great drive up the Great River Road can take a weekend, a week or more.

Dubuque, Iowa

The city’s National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium is a must for anyone interested in the nation’s greatest waterway. Features include a hands-on wet lab, a 40,000-gallon Gulf of Mexico aquarium with rays and other exotic fish, a 3-D theater, interactive historical exhibits and the museum’s own boatyard. From May 23-Sept. 7, artifacts and re-created interiors from the ocean liner Titanic will be on display — even though it never traveled the Mississippi.

Steamboats were once built in Dubuque, and its Diamond Jo Line had many famous excursion vessels. The company, later taken over by Streckfus Steamers, helped spread jazz from New Orleans; Louis Armstrong worked the boats in his youth. The Diamond Jo name survives as a complex of casinos which are, of course, open to the public.

Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin

Marquette and Joliet discovered this city’s future site, near the joining of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, in 1673. It was a military outpost for decades. The Fort Crawford Museum, 717 S. Beaumont Rd., recalls those days, with its 19th century military hospital and related exhibits and the Museum of Prairie du Chien.

The Old French Cemetery is a highlight. “It’s probably the oldest in the state of Wisconsin,” says Mary Elise Antoine, president of the Prairie du Chien Historical Society. It dates back to 1817. “Wisconsin was part of the French empire until the end of the French and Indian War, which was 1763,” says Antoine. The majority of burials are of French-Canadians, whose families came for the fur trade. The cemetery is on County K, north of the city limits.

Prairie du Chien’s jewel, however, must be the Villa Louis, a lavish 1871 mansion that was home to Wisconsin’s first millionaire, entrepreneur Hercules Dousman. Today the estate is operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society, and is open from June 1 through Labor Day, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tours are given on the hour. A highlight this season is “Villa Louis Presents Wisconsin Women of Style.”

“We’re going to be showcasing gowns from the Wisconsin Historical Society that would have been period-appropriate,” says site director Susan Caya-Slusser. “Some of these gowns have never been put on exhibit before.”

Nearby Wyalusing State Park offers camping, hiking and fantastic views of the river.

McGregor, Iowa

Just across the river from Prairie du Chien, this city features a remarkably picturesque downtown historic district, which has become an irresistible spot for many antique stores.

Lynxville and Ferryville, Wisconsin

Continuing up the Wisconsin side on Highway 35, there are picturesque river villages that Twain never saw, at least when he was a steamboat pilot. That’s because the upper Mississippi was unnavigible at that time. The head of the working river ascended as improvements were made and rapids overcome, from St. Louis in the 1810s to Rock Island and Moline, Ill., then Prairie du Chien, Winona, Minn., and finally St. Paul by the 1850s.

Just as in Twain’s youth, however, only a portion of the river is deep enough for shipping. The main channel switches back and forth, first toward one shore and then another. The many towboats pushing strings of barges help show the Mississippi as the nation’s hardest-working river.

Dikes, dams and locks keep the main channel at least nine feet deep. Watching a tow “lock through” is a fascinating sight, and the U.S. Corps of Engineers offers viewing areas for visitors, such as at Lynxville Lock and Dam #9.

Lansing, Iowa

With a typical Mississippi River town, the land is flat along the river; then streets get steeper, thinner and shorter as they climb toward bluffs. This is the Driftless area, a landscape left rugged because ice age glaciers never scoured it.

Lansing’s Mount Hosmer Park is especially steep, 450 feet above the town, offering a remarkable vista of the Wisconsin bluffs. The park was named for Harriet Hosmer, a sculptor who, it is said, won a footrace to the top in the 1850s, while the steamboat on which she was traveling briefly stopped.

De Soto, Wisconsin

Back on the Wisconsin side, heading north, this small town was settled by Yankees and named for the discoverer of the Mississippi, Hernando de Soto. The Bright Spot, just off Hwy. 35 on Hwy. 82 at Mill Park Drive, sells fresh catfish dinners in season — which, luckily, is all summer long.

Victory, Wisconsin

The town was named for the final episode of the Black Hawk Indian War but, even then, few were proud of the Sauk tribe’s defeat in August of 1832. Gen. Henry Atkinson chased Black Hawk, his warriors, women and children across southern Wisconsin to the shore of the Mississippi. Despite attempts to surrender, the Sauk were attacked for two days, by militia and a steamboat-mounted cannon. As many as 600 Native Americans were estimated killed, and it was said that the river ran red with blood. Vernon County’s Black Hawk Park preserves the site here and offers camping and a boat launch.

Genoa, Wisconsin

As its name suggests, this idyllic village was settled by Italians. My grandfather always thought that Clements Fishing Barge, just beneath Lock and Dam #8, was the best fishing service on the river.

The business was started in 1936 by Mark Clements’ grandfather. “Fishing’s been good; lots of different species being caught right now, typical for this time of year,” says Clements.

At the Clements dock on the Wisconsin side, visitors raise a flag. Then the Clements’ boat comes and ferries the group to one of 12 floating docks and piers to fish the best parts of the river in comfort (chairs, bathrooms and a snack bar are available; fishing supplies, too). Clements (clementsfishing.com, 608-689-2800) is open daily in June, Fri.-Sun. in July, and is closed in August.

La Crosse, Wisconsin

Grandpa thought the best riverside parks of the upper Mississippi were here. They frame both sides of the main channel, some on islands; they include Houska, Riverside, Pettibone, Copeland and Veteran’s Freedom parks.

Fayze’s, on 4th Street in the historic district, is a favorite restaurant of locals. Homemade sourdough loaves and bloody Marys are specialties.

The La Crosse Queen, a replica of an old-style paddlewheeler, leaves from Riverside Park. Sightseeing cruises (one and a half or three hours), dinner cruises and even moonlight trips are available (lacrossequeen.com, 608-784-2893; reservations needed for dinner excursions).

Winona, Minnesota

For my money, the drive across the river and up to Winona is the prettiest scenery I have ever seen anywhere. Winona itself is a college town, home to Winona State and Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. It’s increasingly an artist community, with fine Victorian and Prairie Style architecture. Winona Ryder was born nearby and is named after the city, which hosts the annual Great River Shakespeare Festival, June 24-Aug. 3. This year’s plays are Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, King John and The Glass Menagerie.

The Minnesota Marine Art Museum at 800 Riverview Dr. (mmam.org) in Winona is showing a special exhibit of wood engravings by Winslow Homer through Aug. 7 and Stephen Hilyard’s underwater photography through July 15. “The most recent big buzz is the acquisition by the museum of the painting Crossing the Delaware, which had hung at the White House,” says Pat Mutter, executive director of Visit Winona.

Fountain City, Wisconsin

Just up the river, back in Wisconsin, is where four generations of my family have lived. My great-great-uncle Henry edited the paper, which then was in German.

Besides the artesian springs for which the town is named, beer is another beverage bringing the town fame. Fountain Brew, a favorite of my great-grandfather, is back. It had previously been brewed from 1856 to 1965.

“We rescued the recipe back in 1997 from a gentleman who had been working at the brewery when it went out of business,” says John Harrington of the Monarch Public House in Fountain City, which brews it and other beers on-site.

On the next block is the venerable Zum Golden Frosch, or “The Golden Frog,” established in 1878. Both restaurants offer sandwiches and other casual fare.

Nearby Merrick State Park offers camping, hiking and fishing. Fountain City’s Eagle Bluff is the highest point on the entire Mississippi.

In fact, in Life on the Mississippi, Twain encounters a riverboat braggart who describes “Fountain City, nestling sweetly at the feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jove-like, toward the blue depths of heaven, bathing them in virgin atmospheres that have known no other contact save that of angels’ wings.”

I like to think that boast came from my great-great-grandfather.