|
|
||||
Minnesota 
Motto: The Star of the North
Minnesota has earned a reputation as the "Hollywood of the North"
{State
bird, common loon}
{State
flower, showy lady's slipper}
{State
tree, red pine}
More
than a thousand miles from either coast, it's virtually a seaboard state,
thanks to Lake Superior , 
connected
to the Atlantic via the St Lawrence Seaway. The glaciers that, millions
of years ago, flattened all but its southeast corner gouged out more than
15,000 lakes , and major rivers run along the eastern and western borders.
Ninety five percent of the population lives within ten minutes of a body
of water.
More than half of Minnesota's inhabitants, who endure some of the fiercest winters in the nation, live in the southeast, around the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul
Twin Cities, MINNEAPOLIS and ST PAUL are competitive yet complementary. Fraternally rather than identically twinned, they may be even better places to live than they are to visit, thanks to their good looks, cleanliness, cultural activity, social awareness and relatively low crime rates. About thirty of Fortune Magazine's 500 top corporations are based here; many extend substantial financial support to local arts, community projects and sports. Life for a majority of Twin Citians seems so vibrantly wholesome that the most significant threat would appear to be their own creeping complacency.
St Paul has been called "the last city of the east," making Minneapolis across the curving Mississippi "the first city of the west." Only a twenty-minute expressway ride separates their respective downtowns, but each has its own character, style and strengths. St Paul , the state capital - originally called Pig's Eye, after a scurrilous French-Canadian fur trader who sold whisky at a Mississippi River landing in the 1840s - is the staid, slightly older sibling, careful to preserve its buildings and traditions. Its residents are mainly German, Irish and Catholic. The compact but stately downtown is built, like Rome, on seven hills: the Capitol and the Cathedral occupy one each, august monuments that keep the city mindful of its responsibilities.
Minneapolis , founded on money generated by the Mississippi's hundreds of flour and saw mills, is livelier, artier and more modern, with skyscraping, up-to-date architecture and an upbeat and even brash attitude that never quite jeopardizes its essential affability. The mostly Slavonic, Nordic and Lutheran residents are spread over wider ground than in St Paul, with dozens of lakes and parks to underscore the city's appeal. The home-grown superstar Prince and the recording company Flyte Tyme cast a global spotlight on the local music scene.
Exploring
St Paul
St
Paul , reached along I-94 (and served by buses #16A, #21A or downtown express
route #94BCD), has more wealthy old homes and civic monuments than Minneapolis.
Here, too, downtown buildings are linked via skyways
Minnesota's substantial northern half, covered with forested lakes, remains much as it was when the Europeans first traded with the Indians. The northeast - the Arrowhead , poking into Lake Superior - holds the greatest charm: most visitors choose secluded outdoor vacations centered on fishing, canoeing and snowmobiling, but there's infinite potential for driving tours in a wilderness comparable to the Alaskan interior.
The Arrowhead is anchored by busy Duluth . From here, Scenic Hwy-61 skirts the clifftops around Lake Superior, passing waterfalls, state parks and neat little towns on the way northeast to the Canadian border. Sleepy little Grand Marais is poised at the edge of the wild Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and the Gunflint Trail . Inland, the Iron Range makes a scenic route north to the idyllic Voyageurs National Park . To the southwest, in Itasca State Park , the Mississippi River begins its great roll down to the Gulf of Mexico; you can cross the headwaters on stepping-stones. Everywhere you'll find campgrounds and Ma and Pa lakeside resorts , havens of homely simplicity dedicated to soothing urban-ravaged souls.
From a distance the red rocks at Blue Mounds State Park , sloping into a long cliff a few miles north of the junction of I-90 and US-75 at Luverne, create a great hump that appeared blue at sunset to approaching pioneers. Twice a year, at the equinoxes, the sun lines up with a curious 1250ft row of rocks, aligned on an east-west axis. There are seasonal campgrounds and a permanent small herd of buffalo. Ring the same number for picturesque Split Rock Creek State Park , only seven miles south of Pipestone and the site of a dam
Southern Minnesota is split between high plains, timbered ravines and slow-flowing Mississippi tributaries in the east, and the drier, flatter prairie and checkerboard farmland of the west. In the scenic southeast , spared a filing down by the last glacial advance, attractive small towns sit along the Mississippi, or on bluffs above it, in the ninety-mile Hiawatha Valley . Mississippi shipping helped sustain easygoing communities like Winona, Red Wing, Lake City (where water skiing was invented about 1922) and Wabasha , all of which share well-preserved old homes and hotels.
The
agricultural and college center of Northfield , off I-35 thirty miles south
of the Twin Cities, annually commemorates the Jesse James gang's foiled
attempt to rob the town bank in September 1876. Harmony , almost in Iowa
and near Minnesota's largest Amish colony; Lanesboro , with a storybook
setting on the hillsides of the Root River; and Mantorville have all kept
at least one foot in the nineteenth century. Further west, New Prague and
New Ulm were prime targets for the beleaguered Sioux during a six-week
war with the US government in 1862.
