Minnesota: Land of Sky-Blue Waters

By LAURINDA KEYS LONG

It is fitting in several ways that the source of the Mississippi, flowing 3,765 kilometers through the heart of America, is located in a lake in northern Minnesota. The 12th largest of the 50 American states, Minnesota is in the middle of the American heartland.

Its wheat-covered plains were once known as "the breadbasket of the world." It is home to family-owned farms, small town main streets, middle-class suburbs, world class medical and agricultural research, and boasts one of the highest education levels in the United States.

Winters are freezing, with most of the state covered in snow from mid-December to mid-March. Record-breaking blizzards and forest fires are regular occurrences. Relief is provided, however, by the many lakes-about 12,000 of them-and the rushing rivers that enabled Minnesotans to ship all that wheat, and later corn, iron ore and lumber, to the rest of America and the world.

The Dakota Indians who named the region chose aptly. Minnesota means "Land of Sky-Blue Waters." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem about a heroic Indian, The Song of Hiawatha, was inspired by Minnesota's natural beauty. Many places in the state are named in the poem.

Minnesota, and particularly its major metropolitan area, the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis and St. Paul, will be in the news a year from now. The Republican Party, headed by President George W. Bush, will hold its quadrennial convention to formally select candidates to run for President and Vice President in the November 2008 general elections. The opposition Democratic Party will convene in Denver, Colorado, to choose its ­candidates. The location of the Republican convention is no determiner, however, of how Minnesotans will vote in the election. It is known as a "swing state," meaning the voters' choices are less predictable, they vote in large numbers, and in a tight race their decision could "swing" the election. In general, Minnesotans are known for moderate-to-progressive politics and social policies, and a high degree of civic involvement. By several measures, Minnesota has been ranked as among the healthiest and most livable states, with a well educated population.

The convention delegates, and other visitors to the Twin Cities, can find plenty of bests and firsts and biggests. The Mayo Clinic is a destination for world leaders seeking treatment or just a checkup. Northwest Airlines has its headquarters in the metropolitan area. So does 3M company, where Scotch tape was invented. From the cities' docks, one can take a paddleboat ride down the historic and mighty Mississippi, the nation's second longest, but probably most sung about, river. Or go shopping in America's biggest mall, at 882,550 square meters.

"Even if you loathe shopping, you should see the Mall of America," writes Syd Kearney, travel writer for the Houston Chronicle in that other celebration of bigness, Texas. "It is a microcosm of what is best and worst about the United States, our obscene consumption, our brass, our epic vision, our attention deficit, our quest for the good life and our need to socialize."

The two cities, with their separate mayors and city councils, are working together to stage the political convention. But it was not always so. Starting out as a log church (St. Paul) and a British fort (Minneapolis) in the 1700s, the rival towns competed for the right to host the state capital (St. Paul won), slandered each other in their newspapers and inflated their population figures so much that both were investigated by the U.S Census Bureau.

From 1860 to 1880, however, there was little need to falsify such numbers. Minnesota was one of the Midwestern destinations for millions of Northern Europeans who flocked to America seeking a chance to build a better life. So many Swedes and Norwegians found Minnesota, with its chilly clime, a comfortable place to settle that they gave the state a distinctive Nordic flavor. Hard work, hardiness, flower-painted furniture, folk dances, an exceptional focus on children and their education are some examples of the Nordic heritage. Another is a belief by many that the Vikings, ancestors of the 19th century immigrants, found America before Christopher Columbus and that they sailed right along those rivers and lakes to western Minnesota. The state's professional football team reflects that heritage in its name, the Vikings, and in the horned helmets and long blond hair that some fans wear at the games.

The tradition of welcoming immigrants continues and Minnesota has a more diverse population than one would imagine, including more than 30,000 Asian Indians. They are the state's second-largest Asian population behind the Hmong refugees from Laos, and their number is growing much faster, The Associated Press reports. It quotes University of Minnesota economist V.V. Chari as saying the Asian Indian growth comes from the attractions of the region's high-tech industry and major retail companies such as Best Buy and Target, which have big operations in the Twin Cities area. Minnesota is not densely populated. Just over 5 million people share its 225,365 square kilometers, with nearly 60 percent of them living in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area.

The Mississippi River is a major influence on Minnesotans, flowing down from its source at Lake Itasca. Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo, non-stop, across the Atlantic Ocean, and one of Minnesota's many famous natives, entwined the river with the strands of his first memory of an airplane. "I can even connect the Mississippi, here, with aviation," the by-then elderly Lindbergh said in 1973, in a speech on the steps of his childhood home in Little Falls, Minnesota. "One day, before the first World War began, when I was upstairs playing in our house, I heard an unusually loud engine noise. I ran to the window and climbed out onto the roof. There was an airplane flying upriver, below the treetops on the banks. …Of course I wanted to fly in it, but my mother said that it would be much too expensive and dangerous."

Folk singer Bob Dylan is another whose early life was influenced by Minnesota's "Big Outdoors." "My youth was spent wildly among the snowy hills and sky-blue lakes, willow fields and abandoned open pit mines," Dylan wrote in a 1963 letter. "Contrary to rumors, I am very proud of where I'm from and also of the many bloodstreams that run in my roots." Dylan, born in Duluth, is also one of the Minnesotans who believes the Vikings were the first to reach America. In his memoirs, he relates the advice he gave to Irish rock singer Bono, of the band U2: "I told him that if he wants to see the birthplace of America, he should go to Alexandria, Minnesota, where the Vikings came and settled in the 1300s."

Just as Longfellow's Hiawatha can be traced in the mountains, lakes and rivers of Minnesota, fans of Dylan can find references in the state's manmade landmarks-factories, towns and working-class cafes-that resonate in the modern poet's songs. Dylan, who grew up in the mining range town of Hibbing, about 240 kilometers north of Alexandria, mapped out a road trip for his friend, Bono. A traveler following the route can't help humming familiar refrains when passing towns with names such as Rollingstone. The road Dylan selected for Bono is Highway 61, the theme of his 1965 song, and runs along the great, blue Mississippi River.

"As a child growing up in Minnesota, older kids in my primary school used to tease us younger students and would only allow us into their club if we could spell the word Mississippi," says Daniel Miller, a project development officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. "For a kid in the first or second grade, that was a long word to spell, but living in Minnesota we were familiar with the word and quickly learned how to spell it correctly. It became a game to see how fast you could do it."

Another memory for Miller is eating SPAM. No, it's not junk e-mail. And it's not the name of this magazine, either. Before the Internet arrived, to Americans, SPAM meant just one thing, processed, pre-cooked, spiced ham in a can. "Hormel invented SPAM in 1937 in Austin, Minnesota, where I grew up," says Miller. "Our high school sports team was named the Packers in recognition of the important role that the Hormel meat packing plant played in the local economy. Although some of my friends laugh when I tell them I still have SPAM with eggs for breakfast, I am proud of the fact that SPAM made my hometown famous."?

Norman Borlaug is another famous product of Minnesota, even though he wasn't born there. Borlaug's work to develop hardier, healthier and more easily grown crops earned him the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize and the honor, in India, of being known as the father of the Green Revolution. He earned his Bachelor's, Master's and PhD degrees at the University of Minnesota, where agriculture and weather remain important research fields.

An old joke refers to a man who moved to the northern part of the state and asked a neighbor what Minnesota was like in the summer. "I don't know," he replied. "I've only lived here 13 months." But ask a Minnesotan what to do about the winter, and the answer will probably be: Go cross-country skiing, ice-skating, ice-fishing, and of course, play ice hockey. America's gold medal-winning Olympic hockey team, which beat the Soviet Union in a breathtaking match in Lake Placid, New York, in 1980, was coached by a Minnesotan, Herb Brooks, and half of the amateur players were from the state. There is one more thing to do about the cold: stay in Minneapolis. The city's skyway system connects 52 blocks, making it possible to live, eat, work, shop, be entertained and travel between all these locations without ever going outside. But that would be a shame in the land of sky-blue waters.

Daniel Miller, who contributed to this article, is a native Minnesotan.

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Courtesy: SPAN Magazine