It’s such a good thing that our Mighty Mississippi River right here in central Minnesota was chosen as the venue for the 2017 Governor’s Fishing Opener.
A good time to show off.
The fishing opener, which attracts media from far and wide, will shine the spotlight on the wonderful river, and it should remind us all, once again, what a great resource that magnificent river is.
For all too many years, the river was taken for granted by those who live near it. Once upon a time, it was a major form of transportation. But in more recent decades, it was for so many people just a thing to cross on a bridge to get to the other side.
Thanks to the hard work of visionaries – people like St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis and some of the council members in St. Cloud and Sartell – the options of making the great river a major recreational asset is now underway. The walkways, trails, businesses and shops being developed at or near the river help hugely in our enjoyment of the Mississippi. The River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud is aptly named. Rotary Park in Sartell, with its fishing dock, is another example of opening up the river for recreational potential.
Mississippi, which begins at Lake Itasca is 2,350 miles long – the fourth longest river in the world. A major source of drinking water, the river in the past was foul with pollutants of every description. Thankfully, in the past few decades provisions in the Clean Water and Air Act have done wonders to clean up the river and its wider watershed areas.
The river remains a major transportation “corridor” for the movement of material goods and food, from Minneapolis all the way down to New Orleans.
Last but not least, the river and its floodplain are home to a vast variety of living creatures, including 260 kinds of fish, migrating birds, at least 50 types of mammals and 150 species of reptiles and amphibians.
Like the Nile River in Egypt, the Mississippi River is a great giver of life. It is also a mystical enchantress, as that great prose-poet of the river, Mark Twain, knew so well.
“The face of the water,” he wrote, “in time, became a wonderful book – a book that was a dead language to the uneducated (steamboat) passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.”
We, the staff of the Newsleader, would like to extend a warm welcome to Gov. Mark Dayton, to Lieutenant Gov. Tina Smith, to the hundreds of media people and to all others, residents and non-residents, who will help us celebrate our Mighty Mississippi during the fishing-opener.
Enjoy!
