Yes, there is a river here!  The Mighty Mississippi, no less!

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NOTE: The interest in the river in Brainerd has been growing fast of late! For this reason, I will add NEW info hereto the bottom as it comes in. You might find it interesting to see the timeline grow so fast about an asset we have neglected so long.

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NEW for 2017!  A Historic River Tour...on the water, or in your easy chair!  Look for the Putt & Paddle red button towards the bottom of this page.

First, click the audio button to set the mood to RIVER.  We see these birds in early spring on the river, but most move on to the lakes for nesting.

2016/11/28: 

It just seems that something this important deserves its own page, especially when we seem to ignore it so much!  FINALLY, the city is starting to focus on the river and its importance, AND its potential for economic growth, and even recreational opportunities!  Yes, one can recreate on the river!  I don't mean to be cynical, but it is just refreshing to see the river taken seriously now.  A few years ago this was bugging me so I jotted some thoughts down.  This could use some updating as we move closer to appreciating our river more in the coming years, but here it is from back in 2010:

River, WHAT river?

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I was lucky enough to grow up not only in Brainerd, Minnesota, but across the street from Gregory Park here.  At age 4, I don’t suppose I knew that this neighborhood was a very desirable place to be.  We had everything we needed in that park…skating in the winter, climbing trees and Parks Dept. games all summer, tennis, a place to play football or baseball; we LIVED there.  I think we only came home to eat and sleep. 

But about when I turned 8 or so we started venturing out beyond Our Park, and Our Block where we were otherwise confined to.  Somehow we discovered the river, likely not telling Mom.  In the winter we found 3 dandy sliding hills.  In the summertime, these hills led us to places unknown, and there were a LOT of areas to explore.  We weren’t allowed to cross Washington Street to the south, and were afraid to go past the cemetery to the north, so if we wanted to REALLY explore it was on the river banks.  Before long we had built forts, figured out where and when and how to ford out to islands when the river was low, and had a network of caches of candy bars, axes, sticks, and swords made of old Venetian blinds carefully hidden.  We never swam in the river; that scared us to death, but we spent just hours down there.  For some reason, we never thought of it as THE Mississippi River, just OUR river.   So you see, the river is a bit special to me.  Then it was off to high school and the park and the river were just a memory until I rediscovered both from a historical aspect decades later.

Now I spend a lot of time exploring the river, but have come to realize that it is hard to find, and harder to even see!  I know folks that have moved to town and cross the river many times a day, and say they didn’t even realize there was a river there.  I mention Boom Lake and they have never heard of it; Rice Lake…nope.  I can’t really blame folks for not having discovered THEIR river yet.  Coming in from the north from Merrifield, one sees it for just a brief moment before the paper mill.  Then you don’t see it again until you either go west toward Baxter (and you better be in a tall truck to see it from the first 2 bridges) or happen to know where Boom Lake is!  If you DO know where that is, you can drive down from the Fire Hall on East River Road, and you get a glimpse of the river by the bleachers, but only after the leaves drop.   Crossing East College Dr. heading to Kiwanis Park it’s the same thing, with just a few open spots, all the way to Jenny St. where you have to turn left and go uphill.  There is even a park bench placed in a nice river-viewing spot, but again, all summer the trees obscure the view almost entirely.  The main culprit is too many years of Boxelder trees going uncut.  This “tall weed” can grow 7’ or more in a season.  If JUST the Boxelder was cut back one would see 50% more of the river!  I’m all for trees, but there is enough wonderful Scotch and Norway pine, Maple, Spruce, and even Cedar to keep it looking woodsy.  The rest of the obstruction of view is just ordinary brush, and any trees that are big enough to keep could simply be limbed up.

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Back in the early 1980’s we had a parks dept. head that made it his mission for folks to be able to SEE the river.  It was all over in the newspaper.  Trees were trimmed even at the approaches to the bridges, and ALL along East River Road it was cleared out and some Norway Pines were planted.  I remember being able to see the Dairy Queen in the summertime from Riverside School!  The path around Boom Lake was cleared so that one could see the lake all the way around it, and you could easily see the river from the BACK side of the lake!  This all did not come without some controversy.  Just a FEW folks wanted not ONE tree cut or pruned; they wanted it to look natural.  I suppose it was too much too fast.   Well, it has been natural now for 3 decades, and the beautiful Mississippi has all but vanished.  Our wonderful art deco 1932 Washington St. Bridge is viewable only from the river bottoms.  In this same time, deadfall has been allowed to lay and rot, creating a fire and bug and other critters hazard.  The river is strewn with old tires and shopping carts.  Litter is windblown about and gets caught in the thicket between the paved path and the river.  There is a wonderful rarely flooded lower elevation below East River Road, of land all the way from the High Rise to the College  Bridge, almost like a road and it goes right up to the river’s edge, a natural “River Walk” but the woods along the path are too thick to access it.  There’s even a small spit of land jutting out in to the river that looks like a natural lookout, or even a fishing spot.  Our current parks dept. has been doing a great job of mowing now on the back side of Boom Lake where I help maintain the old brewery site.  They have been using a wide sickle mower and brushing 6 or 8’ back, and mowing some clearings, and the difference is unbelievable.  This and the placement of a picnic table and trash can has made this former jungle a little slice of heaven in the woods!  They have done some brushing and limbing from Jenny St. to the Boom Lake inlet, and it is now the nicest river view in the city.

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One has only to travel to Little Falls or St. Cloud to see THEIR Mississippi.  There are pathways at the river’s edge and sunsets to view from park benches a stone’s throw away from the water.  One can also boat and pull up to a landing with a dock to go downtown shopping.  I’d like to see some careful and selective thinning of the brush where it counts the most, like in front of the park bench by the canoe landing at Kiwanis Park.  From a bench last year on the back side of Boom Lake I sat down and could see NONE of the lake, and the bench was just a few feet from the path!  The bench is now IN Boom Lake.  Areas that are unkempt and closed in by brush are just no good for a public area.  It attracts mosquitoes, ticks, and vandalism.  And that historical aspect I mentioned above?  Well, most of our early history of Brainerd is right here in this lower river area, and very few of the historic sites are even marked, not even our 1870s steamboat landing!  Parks & Rec. has however put up some interpretive kiosks at Gregory and Kiwanis Parks, so one can see the history of the site, ON the site!

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This is not necessarily river related, sorry, but does involve bridges.  15 years ago my brother-in-law came for a visit.  He is big into bicycling, having visited by bike every State Park in Colorado.  He was amazed to see that nearly none of our trails were marked.  Even fewer connecting trail systems were marked as to which ones connected to which, or went to where.   He was here again this summer and said the trails are great, but if he hadn’t been here many times before he would not have a clue as to how to get from south Brainerd to the Paul Bunyan Trail.  We have gone nowhere in signage in 15 years.  He avoided the college bridge as it was so hilly, favoring the Laurel St. bridge, but Laurel St. was “just plain dangerous.”  I believe he went down 6th St. and then past the library and through the LEC parking lots to the fire hall.   Not ONE sign!  There are a dozen historical sites along the river too that should be marked. [See Historic Tour of the Mississippi River in Brainerd, Minnesota]

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In conclusion, it is nothing earth-shattering that is needed to bring our river to the public-they just need to be able to see it and get TO it.  Simple tidying up and some directional and historical signage are all that are needed for a noticeable start.   There are just a few precious blocks of viewable river available, so we need to capture it.  Brainerd just does not seem to be what folks consider a “river town”, but it should be. 

-Carl W. Faust, 2010

UPDATE, 2017: We are seeing a LOT more bike path signage now!  The Mississippi River Committee is hard at work promoting recreational use of the river.  There are now many graphic panel markers along the river, so things are improving vastly!  Click below to see just how important the river really was to our town!  It can still be important!!!

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UPDATE, 8/12/2022: Well, I will have to make a huge addendum to my 2010 document above for sure! I'm happy to report on the tremendous progress on getting access to this wonderful gem right here in our town. I will leave the above post in place as is because it is history, and points out what folks can do when focusing on sometint they think is important.