Initially I didn’t realize I needed a river. We were simply on a lazy afternoon drive with only one commitment. Yet, there seemed to be a calling, one apparently buried deeply in subconsciousness.

Yet, here we were. For thirty some years my “home river” was the Minnesota, from the headwaters at the foot of Big Stone Lake down to Mankato where it takes a serious bend to head northeasterly toward its confluence with what becomes the Mighty Mississippi. Hundreds of gneiss outcrops line the shores of the upper river, and eagles often man the riverine forestial  corridor. It’s a river that if one was blind to the murky waters it might suggest resemblance to the BWCA.

With a little time to kill before meeting up with an old friend in Granite Falls on Saturday, my car somehow ventured toward some of my old river haunts downriver, specifically to nearby Kinney’s Landing.

It was auspicious start for the picturesque access where we had launched our canoes so many times over so many of those years was both empty and appeared in disregard. Part of that is undoubtedly due to a summer of high water that prevented meeting up with my old fishing buddies for a bit of walleye and catfish angling. Floating the currents over many of those years to ease behind a dead fall to drop a baited hook has continued even though I have moved from the “upper” portion of the river to the headwaters an hour or so north by auto. Many overnight gravel bar camping trips happened along these waters with huge driftwood bonfires, lines on salt water rods set for all night flathead fishing while I typically did the honors of frying freshly caught catfish served with wine kept chilled in a cooler. Hey, we knew how to live.

Yes, I miss those times.

On this day the arched “church” of a tree way canopy overshadowed ample parking spaces I remembered being full so many times, and the landing itself was mired in a thick cake of mud. An old photo of the access captured on a foggy morning years ago graces my wall, a portrayal both charming and welcoming, a place where you might sit for awhile to take in the surroundings, to sniff the air and listen for feathery songs from the leafy canopy. On an otherwise warm autumn afternoon that would have been prime, such poetry was absent. 

After several minutes we left to take a riverine gravel that hugs the “west” bank where we played tag with a Great Blue Heron, that quickly grew tired of us and angled across the river. The heron would basically be the only bird life we would encounter until we were near the headwaters hours later, where distant swallows livened a beautiful sunset. Yet, this was a familiar stretch, a length of river my writer and fishing buddy, Tom Cherveny, and I launched to paddle upstream to the Minnesota Falls Dam, which has since been removed. 

Before the dam removal the river spread almost lake-like to create numerous islands between downtown Granite and the dam. Just below the dam we caught stringers of nice catfish. When we paddled up to the dam from Kinney’s we would ease our way back, dropping lines along the deeper holes on the east bank and below a couple of river islands. Our heron had landed just downriver of the bigger of the two tree-blessed, rocky islands.

Now, at my age, standing on the bank and gazing at the murky waters, many fond memories of those trips came to mind. Moments that brought a smile, and a calmness that has seemed to be missing of late.

Eventually, though, we headed toward Granite where a hydro dam still exists at the apex of this small, old artistic river town. Surprisingly there were no pelicans. Roberta, my dear partner, has expressed wonder about the sudden absence of the birds especially here in our home prairie. “I think we’re going to have a bad winter,” she’ll say. Perhaps, for on some of the prairie wetlands swans that typically have a couple of signets seemed to have hatched a half dozen or more this summer.

And, it seems as if one day our robust skies populated by two oriel species, brown thrashers, a brave catbird, Red Breasted Grosbeaks, umpteen swallows and even starlings became suddenly and eerily quiet. And, empty. Now? Sparrows and a few gold finches, slowly molting into their winter colors, fight squirrels for feeder space.

As we gazed at the rush of waters below the Granite dam she asked, “Are we following the river all the way home?” Well, yes, for you pretty much do, although you’ll cross the Chippewa, the Sag and the Pomme de Terre en route. We live here in a vast river valley, one created by the Glacial River Warren in whose abandoned bed now flows the minuscule Minnesota — by glacial standards. 

Hours later, when we reached the vast expanse of the Refuge, though, we were actually back to the banks of our namesake flowage. By then the sun had lowered in the western sky, and we had ample clouds to create some beautiful ambient post sunset color. What a blessing to behold, from the river view on the edge of Odessa and into the Refuge itself, where we found reflected colorful skies in windless waters. Being along the river was actually an unexpected blessing, although one that was thoroughly needed. At least subconsciously.

You see, I fear our times, of our loss of compassion and caring for others. It seems increasingly difficult to know the feelings of old friends who are revealing personal thoughts so different than you believed we collectively shared. So on an afternoon of what I later realized was an internal discord, I came to realize just how much I needed a river. My river. A river so mistreated with siltation and chemical runoff, yet one that has followed the same channel since the breakthrough of Lake Agassiz some 10,000 years ago, waters that just keeps ambling along, sandpapering sad thoughts and sending the chaff off along in the down river currents. 

Then there was a heron, perched in the shallows, a dark crown over its grayish blueness, and there was a flow that sometimes in less flooded times offers ripples through shallows for a sense of calmness. And now on an autumn afternoon the wooded riverine banks are taking on a magical transformation of color, and on this, an evening with troublesome anxieties, when the skies came alive with such an amazing palate of color … these are times when little feels better than the comfort of being along the river.