Issue Five : Winter 2017

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Bridal Veil Falls on the East Bank of the Mississippi River, 1860. Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society.
Geographies

Bridal Veil Falls

Many Minneapolis residents don’t know about Bridal Veil Falls, yet there was a time when it was one of the area’s most memorable and sought after tourist attractions. The history of Bridal Veil Falls is one of both human admiration and change.

Small bay on Lake Oahe on the Missouri River. By Argyleist, via Flickr, CC-BY-2.0.
Primary Sources

Treaties & Territory: Resource Struggles and the Legal Foundations of the U.S./American Indian Relationship

…A movement has grown at Standing Rock, inspiring the largest gathering of American Indian tribes in over a century. In attempting to understand this historical contestation over water resources and tribal sovereignty, the question of treaty rights has been on the lips of Standing Rock water protectors, as well as scholars, community leaders, politicians, and commentators.

Water/Ways exhibition in the atrium of the Goodhue County Historical Society.
In Review

Museum on Main Street’s Water/Ways

In November 2016, I visited Water/Ways, hosted from October 1 to November 13 at the Goodhue County Historical Society in Red Wing, Minnesota. This traveling exhibition and community engagement initiative— which then moved on to Sandstone, Minnesota—is part of the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street and is available at a series of venues nationwide through April 2017.

The Mississippi River in Minnesota, by Ken Ratclif (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Perspectives

The National River Organizations

Citizens who appreciate the importance and preservation of our country’s natural resources know that governmental agencies need assistance to do their jobs. That’s why in the conservation arena so many not-for-profit or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are acting to augment and monitor the work of the government agencies.

Louisiana wetlands. By JamesDeMers [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Feature

An Orphaned River, A Lost Delta

Over thousands of years the Mississippi River deposited fresh water, nutrients, and sediment through a vast American territory to form one of the world’s grandest deltas. Today, Louisiana’s coastal wetlands—a critical ecosystem in this delta and a place we call “America’s Wetland”—is dying.

Networks diagram of the Healing Place Collaborative. Image courtesy of Mona Smith
Feature

Healing Place Collaborative

Healing Place Collaborative (HPC) is an association of 40 professionals from many fields who share an interest in the Mississippi River as a place of healing and a place in need of healing. Indigenous-led and artist-led, the group includes language activists, educators, environmentalists, scientists, therapists, community organizers, public officials, and scholars.

Healing Place Collaborative (HPC) network diagram. A circle has different lines stretching across it. Each line represents work or collaboration between two HPC members.
Introduction

Introduction to Issue Five

When I got fully engaged with Mississippi River work, in the mid-90s, there was a lot of talk about public-private partnerships. That has ebbed and flowed and morphed over the years, but the idea of partnership has remained. Pretty much anyone in any sector—public, nonprofit, or corporate—understands that work beyond a small one-time project rarely happens through just one entity.