Minnesota River Interviews - Dave Craigmile - Lac qui Parle River

"You’ve got to understand the river to get in it or on it and that is why I’ve always enjoyed canoeing...on a river. It gives you that seat of the pants feel for the river."

Video Text: "As we stand here, by the South Branch of the Lac qui Parle River, we can look upstream here and we can notice that the rivers are very dynamic. I also just appreciate being on a river and working to understand the physics of the river — why the river is forming a meander right and extending that or why it’s forming this inside bar or why it is jumping across and cutting off a particular meander.

I kind of appreciate even flooding because floods, at least the annual flood, is a normal thing for the river. Rivers flood so that they replenish their floodplain and it’s all just part of the normal system. The problem comes when humans get in the way of this, build in the way of it, farm in the way of it, whatever they may do and then they get kind of disturbed and ticked off at the river. But really they are the ones that invaded the river’s territory, the river’s flood plain and that’s why there’s a problem.

You’ve got to understand the river to get in it or on it and that is why I’ve always enjoyed canoeing and later days, kayaking on a river. It gives you that seat of the pants feel for the river. You can feel the river moving under you. You can observe how the bars are forming in the river and you can certainly observe all the wildlife and the flora and fauna in general that are part of the river system. It’s always easy to look over the river bank and assume what’s going on, but it’s quite a bit more work to track it down and try to understand the issues that are involved behind it.

This page was last updated 8/08