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[narr] As we travel on the Great River Road heading east out of Bemidji,
following the southern slope of the Laurentian Divide,
the Mississippi winds through some of the most beautiful pine forest and lake country in the world.
[man] We have the cleanest water in North America.
Itasca County has 1000 of the 10,000 lakes in our state.
[narr] Most of those 1000 lakes in Itasca County are accessible to the public.
Dozens of great resorts cater to the desires of vacationers year round.
From rustic to luxurious; the serenity of listening to the wind
coaxing pine trees to sing their ancient song,
to the adrenaline overload of racing a snowmobile across a frozen lake,
you will find what you need here in the North Woods.
Grand Rapids is the Itasca County seat, a bustling city home to the Blandin Paper Mill
and before the Mississippi was controlled by a series of dams,
it was the site of grand rapids, of course.
[man] The river descended for a quarter mile and you could hear
the Grand Rapids from quite a distance.
[narr] These days things are much quieter along the river. The city has built a riverside park
in the heart of downtown, just downstream from the Blandin Paper Mill.
[man] We have a wonderful library right on the Mississippi River,
the Blandin Foundation contributed quite a bit.
Charles Blandin fell in love with the area and left his entire estate
which is now worth 400 million to the city.
[woman] You're the best smelling people I've seen in a long time.
[man] We have the Forest History Center,
which is a wonderful living history program of a real logging camp.
[woman] I love to come to the FHC I take my students every year
because they're great at coming up with programs that fit my curriculum.
I think they learned a lot about history
and I also think they think they learned a lot about practical uses for math,
which I tell them a lot but it's nice for them to actually see it.
[narr] The logging camp is not the only example of living history in Grand Rapids.
[man] Central School, an 1895 schoolhouse that's been restored to its original state.
[narr] And Grand Rapids is where Judy Garland spent her formative years.
[man] The Garland Museum is one of the oldest celebrity museums in the country.
It really began in 1975, 6 years after Judy died.
It consists of the historic home that's has been restored to how it looked in 1925
based on eyewitness accounts, and then we have the collection,
which includes many pieces from the Wizard of Oz. But we have Abraham
Lincoln's carriage, which ironically was used in the Wizard of Oz,
it brought the characters into the emerald city.
And we have her gold record for Over the Rainbow,
that was named the top song of the 20th century.
[narr] At least two things haven't changed since Judy left town,
[woman] You could try a sample if you'd like.
[narr] local farmers still grow their crops and sell them to hungry customers
and the rains that water those crops
still leave the region heading to very different places.
[man] The watersheds move in 3 directions;
towards Hudson Bay, toward Lake Superior, and toward the Mississippi River.
[narr] The Mississippi takes the southerly route out of Grand Rapids,
heading towards the Gulf of Mexico.
There is so much more to learn about this area and the rest of the Great River Road.
For more information, visit our website:
mnmississippiriver.com