Bemidji, Minnesota

  

I’ve intersected with the Mississippi more times on this trip than I did with Highwwy 66 in Oklahoma last February.  The latest was in Bemidji, which lays claim to its lake being the last lake the River passes through before it becomes an entity all its own.  I’m close enough now to its headwaters that tourist shops in Bemidji sell Mississippi Headwaters souvenirs.

One tourist shop advertised it carried 230 different moccasins and 23 varieties of wild rice.  Besides being a tourist town Bemidji is also a college town, with three of them.  And it also claims to have the oldest statue of Paul Bunyan, of which there are many scattered throughout the state and elsewhere in the northlands all the way to Maine and into Canada.  It was erected in 1937.  It stands in front of the tourist office on the lake which was purportedly formed from the foot print of the giant lumberjack, one of his lesser exploits compared to his creating the Grand Canyon by pulling his ax behind him. Bemidji also boasts a Carnegie, which resides not far from Bunyan in the same park that fringes the large lake.  It is now a museum.

The further north I venture the more abundant are the lakes.  Roads have to wind all over to get around them.  The state’s license plate, of which I have scavenged one so far, promotes its 10,000 lakes.  The actual number is 11,842 of ten acres or more.  Wikipedia lists them all.  One would think a lake is always nearby, but four of its eighty-seven counties are lake-free.  Each of the lakes are named, some quite creatively.  There are lakes named Boo, Fink, Antler, Armstrong, Oscar, Beast and Fools.  

There aren’t enough different names to give each a name of its own.  There are many duplicates including six Lake Georges and more than two hundred Mud Lakes.There is only one lake beginning with the letter X (Xander) and three Qs (Quamba,  Quarry and Quinn).

In the northern woodlands the towns are smaller and fewer.  Many have one hundred or less residents. They are dependent on a once a week bookmobile for their library.  Since I’m dependent on them for the internet, I’ve gone as many as seventy miles without being able to connect.  In a town of nine hundred I asked an older guy if there was a library there.  He said the town was toomsmallmtomhave a library, but it didnt matter as no one there could read.   The camping couldn’t be easier.  I can watch the sun ease below the horizon and have no panic of finding a place to camp.  There is always a spot moments after it makes its exit.  

I was a little leery two nights ago when I saw three young men in camouflage sauntering along the road cradling rifles at dusk.  Their bright orange beanies identified them as hunters.  I pedaled three miles past them before I ventured into the forest past a gate down a weed-choked dirt road.  It took me into an overgrown meadow with a dilapidated elevated hunter’s blind in a corner that didn’t look as if it had been used in years.  I felt safe camping somewhat in the open with my bike besides my tent, assured that no hunter would mistake me for a Bambi.  It was a quiet night without even a deer venturing nearby.

I had camped thirty miles south of Park Falls and its Carnegie.  It was the first of these travels that was vacant.  It had been maintained well enough to attract a tenant.  It was located just a block from the town’s main intersection and its MacDonalds.

I arrived in time for its breakfast bargain of two sausage biscuits for three dollars, a better bargain and more calories than two McChickens, which I would have had if I’d been a bit later.  Six old guys sat at one table nursing coffees. Other elderly in pairs and alone were scattered about as if this were the local Senior Center.  One guy from the table of six came over and asked if I was traveling. He didn’t realize the town library had been funded by Carnegie nor that he had provided over sixty of them in the state.  He assured me I didn’t have to worry about snow until mid-November.

My lone Carnegie the day before in Aitkin was also in fine shape, showing no wear, virtually wrinkle-free despite its 111 years of use. A vinyl sign stretched over its entry, just below “Carnegie Library,” identifying it as an art center.  It’s wooden floor was well-varnished, and its walls were lined with paintings.  

A few of my miles to Bemidji were on a bike path, of which there are many in the state thanks to its many rail lines that transported logs.  The paths don’t always follow highways and often venture in a more direct route to my next destination through pasture lands and along lakes in utter tranquility.  I’ve encountered only one or two other cyclists.  It’s mostly been dog walkers and an occasional jogger.  

I have been generally happy to take advantage of the paths, though they sometimes can be rough going with an unintended, spine-jarring, mini-speed bump every three or four pedal strokes on pavement that has been laid in sections and not smoothed out.  If there’s an accompanying road with a smoother shoulder that is always my choice.  

Only once has a motorist slowed to angrily shout at me, “They built that path over there for you.”  The shoulders though can sometimes have similar uneven pavement with a break slashing across it every ten or fifteen feet.  They force me onto the road to spare not only my back but my spokes the abuse.  Fortunately there’s not much traffic.  I just have to monitor my mirror more than usual for traffic coming from behind.

I received the news from a baseball podcast that as of October 1 Canada is no longer going to require Americans to be vaccinated to enter the country which is good news for those teams with players who are vaccinated that could be going to play the Toronto Blue Jays in the playoffs.  It’s also good news for me, sparing me the rigmarole of registering on line to enter the country and specifying where and when I expect to arrive.   It could be in four or five days.  

Learning that was as exciting as hearing Carnegie as the answer to a question on Matt Stephen’s cycling podcast.  He always has a quiz for his guest relating to his home town.  His guest was the English broadcaster Rob Hatch and the question was, “What American philanthropist funded the library in Atherton,” Hatch’s home town.  It was a multi-choice question and Hatch answered  it correctly.