The Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast

Send us Fan Mail The Mississippi River has inspired artists of many stripes, including Prairie du Chien-based sculptor Florence Bird. In this episode, I talk with Bird about her path into a career as a professional artist, how she found inspiration from the Mississippi, and the details of how she goes from idea to a life-sized bronze statue. Bird is enthusiastic about her art and the Mississippi a...

Send us Fan Mail On April 8, 2024, a full solar eclipse will make is way across North America from Texas to the Northeast. It’ll cross the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. Much of southeast Missouri and all of southern Illinois will be in the path of totality, with some places experiencing the eclipse for just over four minutes, including Trail of Tears State Park just north of Cape Girardeau...

Send us Fan Mail In The Log of the Easy Way, John Mathews wrote about a honeymoon trip he and his wife took in 1900. No, they didn’t relax at an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica; they traveled a couple thousand miles down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers in a homemade shantyboat.  Their book is just one of many written by people who have taken a long trip on the Mississippi, from Charles Lanman’...

Send us Fan Mail What’s it like to work on a riverboat? Lee Hendrix entered riverboat work in 1972 as a deckhand, worked his way up to mate, then into the pilothouse. He has spent most of his adult life as a pilot of riverboats big and small, from tows pushing barges to elegant overnight cruise ships.  In his new book, Peep Light: Stories of a Mississippi River Boat Captain, Lee shares stories fro...

Send us Fan Mail Men have dominated the world of outdoor adventuring and guiding for so long, that it’s easy to overlook the increasing presence of women in all spheres. More women now complete long-distance paddles on the Mississippi, as well as through hikes on the major trails. The world of guided paddling on the Mississippi reflects the trend. In this episode, I talk with five women who worked...

Send us Fan Mail It’s easy to take weather forecasting for granted, especially given the difficulties with producing accurate forecasts, but at least we almost never get surprised by big storms. That wasn’t true in 1940, when an unusually warm November day turned deadly. In this episode, I tell the story of the Armistice Day Blizzard, a massive storm that plowed through the central part of the Uni...

Send us Fan Mail Drive anywhere along the Mississippi or most any other river and you’ll see a levee, an earthen wall that parallels the river to keep water in the main channel and out of the adjacent floodplain. In this episode, I talk with Nicholas Pinter about levees and the good and bad that has come with them. We discuss the evolution in responsibility from local jurisdictions to the federal...

Send us Fan Mail I don’t know if there’s another animal that has been simultaneously reviled and admired like wolves. We have a primal fear of them—their howls can make the bravest among us pick up their pace. But wolves also occupy a unique place in many cultural myths representing family, loyalty, and intelligence. In this episode, I talk with conservation biologist Matt Fox about those contradi...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the podcast, we wade into food traditions in the places along the Mississippi. Chef Regina Charboneau, a 7th generation Natchezian and author of Mississippi Current Cookbook: A Culinary Journey Down America’s Greatest River, is our guide as we talk about food traditions in places as different as Minnesota and Natchez, Mississippi. Chef Regina talks about her pat...

Send us Fan Mail Coffee shops, bars, diners, churches, bowling alleys—these are all important places in our social lives, so-called third places after home and work. When I’m traveling, I am drawn to them, whether I’m traveling for work or fun. They are not only great places to learn about the community, but I’ve also made new friends at many of them. In this episode, I share a list of some of the...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back! Last week, I shared the first part of my conversation with General Gerry Galloway, the person chosen by President Clinton to lead a review what happened in 1993 and what could be done to prevent such extensive damage in the future. Because our discussion ran long, I split it into two episodes. Check out the previous episode to hear the first half of our conversation,...

Send us Fan Mail In 1993, the Great Mississippi River Flood upended lives throughout the Midwest, although the greatest damage was in the Mississippi River floodplain from the Quad Cities south to around Cairo, Illinois. Thousands of people were forced into temporary shelters, and 52 people. In the aftermath of the flooding, President Clinton established a commission to review the events of the Gr...

Send us Fan Mail Louisiana is known for its swamps, and for good reason. In spite of some of the associations with have with the word swamp, I find them beautiful, mysterious, and magnetic. In this episode, I talk with Jessica Gauley about a section of swamp along the Pearl River known as Honey Island. Jessica grew up with the swamp and today runs Honey Island Kayak Tours, a company that specializ...

Send us Fan Mail Dense forests of white and red pine once ranged across northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Tall, ancient trees that were part of a rich ecosystem well-adapted to the northern climate and one that had evolved to rely on periodic fires to stay healthy. Those trees were also highly desired by logging companies and builders who needed vast amounts of lumber to feed the appetites of grow...

Send us Fan Mail People in North America have been getting around in canoes for thousands of years. The basic design was so perfectly engineered that we’re still using it today. In this episode, I talk with Mark Neuzil, who co-wrote “Canoes: A Natural History in North America” with Norman Sims. We talk about the basic design, variations in materials used to build them from traditional bark canoes...

Send us Fan Mail It’s summer, which means it’s a great time to get out on or along the Mississippi River, and this year’s version of River Days of Action is a great place to start. In this bonus episode, I talk with Michael Anderson, Director of Outreach and Education for the Mississippi River Network, about what’s happening for River Days of Action this year, why it matters, and how anyone can pa...

Send us Fan Mail What are the challenges involved with managing a small rivertown? And how does a dyed-in-the-wool Northeasterner and international business consultant end up living in a small town on the Mississippi River in the middle of America? That’s the path Philip Stang has followed to Kimmswick, Missouri, where he has served multiple terms as Mayor. In this wide-ranging interview, we pull...

Send us Fan Mail On May 17, 1673—350 years ago—Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette began an epic trip from the Great Lakes through Wisconsin and down the Mississippi River, one that would prove to be enormously consequential for European colonial ambitions and for the lives of indigenous people in the region. In this episode, I talk with Michael Douglass, an enthusiastic historian and forme...

Send us Fan Mail What’s your Mississippi River like? Why do you keep coming back? For many people, the Mississippi means barges and Mark Twain, but the river is so much more than that. In this episode, we hear from five people who have a strong connection with the river that doesn’t involve barges or Mark Twain: a writer and poet, a sculptor, two long-distance paddlers, an owner of a guiding compa...

Send us Fan Mail It seems to be in our nature to draw lines that separate us from this or that. Rivers offer a convenient way for us to draw some of those lines, those boundaries, especially big rivers. In this episode, I tell a few stories about how we’ve used the Mississippi River to draw political lines, some of which didn’t quite go according to plan. (Ever wonder why Minnesota has that funny...

Send us Fan Mail Just across the main channel of the Mississippi River from downtown Winona, Minnesota, you’ll find a unique community of folks who live intimately with the river. Dozens of boathouses line the eastern shore of Latsch Island, and many of them are home to people who live there year-round. In this episode of the Mississippi Traveler Podcast, I talk with Gina Favano about her recent p...

Send us Fan Mail Spring is in the air, at least for the lower two-thirds of the Mississippi Valley. Birds are on the move already, and early spring flowers are popping up in my part of the river. With migration season just getting going, it’s a good time to talk about a few places where it’s relatively easy to appreciate all those birds on the move. In this episode, I describe five day trips that’...

Send us Fan Mail Over 3,000 years ago, a community of people who lived off the land constructed a remarkable group of earthworks that includes mounds, a plaza, and a series of C-shaped rings where they probably built houses. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Diana Greenlee about this amazing place, Poverty Point World Heritage Site. We talk about the various earthworks that make up the site, how th...

Send us Fan Mail If there’s one thing we love to debate, it’s history and what history we should teach and idolize. In this episode, I share a few thoughts about the history we know and why we should dig deeper into stories from the past. I also interview the founder of the Mississippi River Photos group on Facebook, Norman Schafer, and share a Mississippi River-inspired poem from New Orleanian Jo...

Send us Fan Mail Bald eagles! January and February are popular months for eagle watching along the Mississippi River, as the birds congregate near open water along the river where the fishing is easy. In this episode, I go deep into the lives of bald eagles with Ed Hahn, Director of Marketing and Communications at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota. Got a question about the lives of b...