Mee-zee-see-bee

The Mississippi River has its own National Park in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area that we visited today. Created in 1988, it is 75 miles long and represents the many  natural, cultural, and economic themes of the entire Mississippi River, the waterway known to the Ojibway Indians as the Mee-zee-see-bee, the Father of Waters. 

Minneapolis traces its roots to early European settlements at St. Anthony Falls, the only major falls on the Mississippi. The falls powered the gristmills and sawmills that provided flour and lumber of the settlers. Historically, St. Paul was the northernmost navigable point on the 2,350-mile river. 

Ancestors of Today's American Indians began moving into the upper Mississippi Valley about 12,000 years ago after the last of the continental glaciers receded. They established intermittent and seasonal villages on terraces above the riverbanks and canoed the waterways to hunt, gather plants, and trade goods. 

Spanish and French expeditions explored portions of the Mississippi River in the 1600s and 1700s. Some explorers, entering from the north, were looking for the river's mouth. Others, entering from the south, were searching for its origin -- and hoping to discover that the river provided a shortcut across the continent to the Far East.

Recognizing the natural riches of the region, the French (late 1600s-1763) and English (1763-early 1800s) established trading posts along the upper Mississippi River. Great quantities of beaver pelts and other furs were traded at the posts for cloth, metal tools, and other products. Early settlers sent home reports of the bountiful wilderness and of opportunities to create new lives for themselves and their children. 

In the mid-1800s immigrants from Germany, Norway, Sweden and other European nations and Americans from the East, moved into the area. This forced the Dakota Indians to leave the Twin Cities area in 1854 for reservations along the Minnesota River. The settlers cleared forests, built homes, and constructed roads linking farms with the villages and river ports. In 1858 St. Paul counted more than 1,000 steamboat dockings. Powered by the river, Minneapolis became the flour milling capital of the nation from 1880 to 1930. 

The Visitor Center is located on the first floor of the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Paula provided us with information, maps and encouragement.

After our visit to the National Park we decided to take in the Science Museum.

They have a huge display of dinosaurs and this T-Rex in the lobby was just an introduction.

There was also a nice exhibit on the Mississippi River and a replica of the marker that is at the headwaters on Lake Itasca. You remember this from two days ago.

This is the fossil of a giant beaver that was in the area 11,700 years ago.

An artist's rendering of what one of these giant beavers looked like. Notice that they lacked the broad, flat tail of the current beaver. Giant beavers grew to be six to nine feet long and weighed from 300 to 500 pounds, about as much as today's black bears. 

The mummy is a man in his 30s. The body displays three characteristics of ancient priests: a shaven head, callused feet (meaning he walked barefoot), and well preserved hands that show no sign of hard manual labor. There is no indication of the cause of death. The age of the mummy is from 1517 - 1320 BC.

This dinosaur fossil was suspended from the ceiling in the stairway outside the main exhibit.

Triceratops, a Cretaceous Period, plant-eating dinosaur, is the most famous of the horned dinosaurs. This is the most complete Triceratops skeleton known. Only three other museums in the world display real Triceratops skeletons; the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution and in the Milwaukee Public Museum. This skeleton is a composite of two Triceratops found in Montana's Hell Creek Formation.

This Triceratops is the largest known, more than one and a half times larger than the complete skeletons in the other three museums. Since dinosaurs may have grown throughout their lives, it's hard to know the maximum adult size of any particular species.

These spinal plates are the most puzzling feature of this Stegosaurs. They were probably of little use for defense. More likely, these plates both absorbed and shed heat, helping Stegosaurus maintain a steady body temperature. Elephants use their large ears in much the same way today.

Diplodocus is very typical of the largest dinosaurs. The long neck and tail (which you can't see in the picture, but it was very long) counterbalanced each other, and the animal used its neck like an elephant's trunk, sweeping it back and forth to strip vegetation. It is estimated that Diplodocus may have been well over 100 feet long and weighed nearly 80 tons.

Glyptodont is an extinct relative of the armadillo. 

Because of their weighty armor, glyptodonts may have been too slow and ponderous to compete during the rapid ecosystem changes of the last three million years.

Another exhibit featured a tornado. We could put our hand through the tornado and disrupt it swirling.

View of the Mississippi outside the 5th floor of the Science Museum. 

Frederick tried the tugboat simulator and beached the container barge that he was piloting down the Mississippi.