Article content The Mississippi River looms large in the American psyche. Long before trains, planes and automobiles, Native people — and later fur traders, rum runners, colonists and goods — traversed the river by canoe and steamship. Flowing, and sometimes meandering, for 3,767 km from Minnesota’s Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico, the river touches 10 states on its southward journey.
Cities and towns along its shores are woven together into the very fabric of America — backdrops for classic literature, music history, industrial innovation, rich agricultural land and more. Today’s travellers can do a deep dive into Mississippi history and culture aboard a river cruise. Southern locales such as Memphis and New Orleans are perhaps more well known but Upper Mississippi ports have their own appeal as I recently discovered on Viking River Cruises’ eight-day Heartland Of America itinerary and land tour option, which added two-day stays in St.
Louis and St. Paul. I find it impossible to travel and not learn something new.
And there was plenty to learn on the ship and the shore. Our voyage aboard Viking Mississippi started in St. Louis, considered the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
The 1804-1805 journey explored the vast territory from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which was acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and almost doubled the size of the United States. The expedition’s start is marked by the Gateway Arch, a freestanding 192-metre-high engine.
