Great info on Upper Miss River travel!

“I was looking at the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (that's quite a title!) website, then looked at the Friends of the Upper Miss Refuge website.

A guy has published info on traveling throughout the refuge. "The Road Trip
Around the Upper Mississippi River Refuges,"
Brian C. Aldrich, Editor. © Friends of the Upper Mississippi River Refuges

For example, he gives a number of backwater canoe/kayak routes, museums to see, overlooks, where to find birds, etc.

It's downloadable! Here's the page with the book -- or whatever it is -- available to download in .pdfs

http://www.friendsofuppermiss.org/”

“Thanks lizs. I was wondering if you looked at it in any detail.

My adobe system is very slow, but I looked at some of it. The maps that I found were from near the St. Croix down into Illinois. They show all or many of the boat ramps, parks and eating places in the area near the river. I don't know if it has any maps of the upper Mississippi River in Minnesota. There may be some buried in the text. It would take me a while to print the entire document, which is in five or more sections. I did print the colorful cover page.”

“Cool read Lizs. I always wondered about a canoe trip down the St. Croix and the Mississippi Rivers in Wisconsin.”

“http://home.gci.net/~buck/Mississippi_Canoe_Trip_3.html


http://www.caleuche.com/river/RiverStory.htm”

“about 8 yrs ago I was offered a job by a company in Lake City, Minn. I turned it down because the wife (now ex) didn't want to move. If I had only known...lol
I really liked that area, to bad I didn't get to enjoy it

Just think lizs I would have been up your way..yeah I know shudder the thought.”

“Thanks lizs. I'll take a look when there's more time.

Just one more good reason to be single Ewker! :-)”

“ohhhhhhh, I better clarify. This refers to the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. It's *not* at the river's start or even up around St. Croix.

This includes the Winona (MN), La Crosse (WI), McGregor (IA) and Savanna (IL) Districts.

HOME PAGE FOR REFUGE:
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/UpperMississippiRiver/

Ahhh, that page includes a photo from Mount Hosmer Park in Lansing, Iowa. I have a number of photos like that, like the one below. The only large prints I've ever sold were of this view on a cloudy day, something like the shot on the website, but not during fall. :-)



The Winona District is farthest north and here is what it says about where it starts: "The District begins at river mile 763.5 at the mouth of the Chippewa River above Nelson, Wisconsin to lock and dam 6 at river mile 714.3 near Trempealeau, Wisconsin."

On the south end, the Savanna District gets as far south as Rock Island, IL -- which would be the Quad Cities area. It includes everything in between. I was looking at the Savanna District home page and see a former army depot at Savanna has recently been included in the refuge as the "Lost Mound Unit."

More info on the location of the refuge on the river:

The Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge stretches along the Mississippi River and includes Districts in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. The Refuge is part of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which also includes Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin and Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa.

Established in 1924, the 240,000-acre Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge covers 261 miles of the River valley from Wabasha, Minnesota, to Rock Island, Illinois. The Refuge is divided into four districts, the Savanna District, the Winona District, the McGregor District, and the LaCrosse District. The Refuge includes broad pools, islands, braided channels, extensive bottomland forest, floodplain marshes and occasional sand prairie. These habitats are critical to mammals, waterfowl, songbirds and raptors, amphibians and reptiles. More than 130 Bald Eagle nests and a yearly average of 14 active Heron colonies with a total of 5,000 nests exist on the Refuge. The Refuge and the River support 119 fish species that support a strong commercial and recreational fishery.

And on the formation of the refuge:

It is the longest river refuge in the United States excluding Alaska. It extends 261 miles along the Mississippi River from the Chippewa River in Wisconsin to nearly Rock Island, Illinois.

The creation of the Refuge was largely the result of the Izaak Walton League, and in particular, the efforts of its founder and leader, Will Dilg. Dilg, an advertising executive in Chicago and an avid angler and lover of the outdoors, formed the Izaak Walton League in 1922. For nearly two decades, Dilg had spent much of the summer fishing and enjoying the Upper Mississippi River.

In the summer of 1923, he learned of a plan to drain a large portion of the river backwaters and came up with an ambitious solution to the drainage scheme: turn the entire stretch of river into a federal refuge.

Remarkably, one year later, due to Dilg’s determination, Congress passed the Upper Mississippi River Wild Life and Fish Refuge Act on June 7, 1924. The act authorized the acquisition of land for a refuge between Rock Island, Illinois and Wabasha, Minnesota.
last edited: 12/14/05 9:17:46 AM”

“I was just looking at the page on the Driftless Area refuge. Apparently scattered tracts of land in Iowa for the most part, protecting a small Ice Age remnant snail and the rare Monkshood flowers.

Interesting! I had no idea there was such a thing.”