The river and road are key mythic
1. Kinnickinnic River
retreating glaciers along its edges.
and historical highways as well, pulling
2. Rush River
Floodwaters of Biblical proportions
Huck Finn and Jim to downriver
D
3. Whitewater River
RIFTLESS
4. Trout Run
from Glacial Lake Agassiz in what is
adventures, while the open highway
MN
61
1
SPRING 5. South Root River now western Minnesota gushed
enticed many African-Americans CREEKS
6. Beaver Creek
down Glacial River Warren 10,000
north, bringing the delta blues with
7. Coon Creek
Minneapolis/
years ago, creating today’s expansively
them. The Great River Road, one of
2
8. Coulee Creek
St. Paul wide Minnesota and Mississippi
6
9. Kickapoo River
America’s longest and most storied
10. Bear Creek
7
River valleys. To complete the picture,
scenic byways, follows much of
11. French Creek
3
thick deposits of fertile, wind-blown
Highway 61, from the Mississippi’s
4
8
glacial material called loess
clean, creek-sized source at Lake Itasca
WI
accumulated on the uplands, making it
in Minnesota down to the Big Easy’s
5
an attractive area to future farmers.
mile-wide murky gumbo.
9
Over time, the glacially fed streams
Many people are familiar cut deeply into bedrock layers of sand-
with bits and pieces of the myth
61 10
Madison
11
stone, shale, dolomite and limestone:
and reality of this journey carbonate-rich and fossiliferous layers
through the heart of America,
IA
that stimulate today’s high aquatic
but most don’t realize that the productivity. The sedimentary
Mississippi and Highway 61 cut
Cedar Rapids
bedrock—deposited 400-500 million
through one of America’s least- years ago when the region was covered
known great small-stream trout
61
IL
by shallow seas—acts as a giant sponge,
fishing destinations. This section
61
soaking up moisture and then releasing
of the upper Midwest, known as it in the countless, watercress-fringed
the Driftless Region, includes springs that percolate through the area,
portions of southeastern Minnesota, southwestern Wisconsin, creating stable flows and cool water temperatures.
northeastern Iowa, and even a bit of northwestern Illinois— The rugged, karst topography is unpredictable and full of
approximately 10,000 square miles—roughly bounded by mystery, evoking a scaled-down version of the Ozarks. Streams
Interstate 94 on the northern edge and somewhere south of vanish, only to emerge miles away, gushing full-blown from cliff
Dubuque, Iowa on the southern border. faces. Parts of the landscape are dotted with hundreds of sinkholes,
There’s a cornucopia for pilgrims of all persuasions to absorb looking like ancient bomb craters from the air, creating a direct
here, in a region rich with historic old river towns, Amish farmsteads, link from the surface world to the aquifers below—not always
bucolic landscapes, and quirky charms. But, if you’re a fly fisher, a good thing in today’s Superfund-site-riddled world.
you should know that the quiet green valleys and limestone In the Driftless Region, you can be driving through an
cliffs of the Driftless Region shelter some of the best and most upland, loess-covered cornfield then, a minute later, you’re
publicly accessible spring-creek fly fishing in the country: more plunging unexpectedly into a 500-foot-deep stream valley, on a
than 2,000 miles of fine trout water. If the best of these streams road twisting though a ravine of dense hardwoods, remnant
flowed through a private pasture in the Gallatin or Yellowstone white pines, and limestone outcrops. Cool, shaded valleys harbor
valleys in Montana, you might easily have to cough up $50 a rare species found at the northern edge of their range: shagbark
rod to try them. hickory, black walnut, giant swallowtail butterflies, and the
I drifted west from my midwestern home waters a while back, rarely-seen timber rattlesnake. Local farmers, some feeling
but I keep revisiting the unique landscape bisected by Highway pretty threatened themselves, gather at dawn for breakfast in
61 as often as possible. I still have this undulating panorama on the local cafes in the many little towns dotting the area, perusing
my mind, a lost love that hasn’t relinquished its hold on my the newspaper, greeting friends, talking about depressed
geographical imagination. Think the idea of vacationing in, commodity prices.
around, or anywhere near Iowa is silly? Abandon your pre-
conceptions and join me on a trout-filled road trip down
Native Brookies Are Coming Back
Highway 61.
When European settlers first starting pouring into southeastern
Minnesota after a treaty was signed with the Dakotah Sioux in
Getting the Lay of the Land
the early 1850s, they encountered one of the western-most
The essential geological fact about the Driftless Region is concentrations of native eastern brook trout in the country. As
that its surface wasn’t planed down during the most recent period land was cleared and steep hillsides planted, the powerful
of glaciation in North America, some 12,000 years ago, as was much thunderstorms that frequently pummel the area began deposit-
of the surrounding Midwest. The region is lacking glacially ing huge amounts of highly erosive loess into the previously
deposited drift (hence it’s “driftless”), but it was dissected by a clear and pristine creeks.
plethora of serpentine stream valleys carrying runoff from By the early 20th century, catastrophic floods in the region
became routine, eroding cropland and depositing yards of silt
Opposite page: Rupprecht Creek, west of Winona, Minnesota, is
typical of the lovely spring-fed trout streams of the upper
on some of the valley floors—in some cases burying barns up to
Mississippi woodlands. Ultra-clear water makes light tippets and their hay lofts. In 1938, Minnesota’s Whitewater River
a stealthy approach musts. Abundant aquatic-weed growth makes
overflowed its banks 28 times, flooding out residents, creating
fly patterns imitating freshwater scuds an excellent choice.
S UMMER 2002 23
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