Its outsized influence stretches across history, from Henry Schoolcraft’s storied search for the Headwaters to the peopling of the bread basket to the great floods of the modern era.

As a symbol, the river has been seen to represent freedom, lawlessness, civilization, the wild frontier, even the passage of time (see “Huckleberry Finn,” and scads of lesser story and song).

Yet as befits the object of so much lore, misperceptions about the Father of Waters—or Misi-ziibi, as the Ojibwe called it—linger to this day.

John O. Anfinson, author of “The River We Have Wrought: A History of the Upper Mississippi,” has spent much of his working life thinking about and studying the river. But as a student at the University of Minnesota, Anfinson says he knew little of the ribbon of water he passed over daily as he walked across the Washington Avenue Bridge to his classes.

He recalls peering down at the waters and being puzzled that the levels seemed to remain relatively constant, despite the fluctuations in rainfall.

Only later did Anfinson learn the reason: the Mississippi is not a natural river but, rather, “a highly engineered body of water” whose flows are regulated by a series of dams that begin not far from the headwaters at Itasca.

Meanwhile, the once ungovernable contours of the wild river were tamed as the US Army Corps of Engineers built dams and levies and dredged navigation channels.

Anfinson, who is now the chief resource officer for the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), said many ordinary Parting the waters of conventional water wisdom. citizens know little about the highly controlled nature of the river. In fact the river is seen as merely a backdrop to people’s workaday lives; many Twin Cities residents don’t even know that the MNRRA, a National Park, is in their midst.

“There’s a disconnection from the river,” said Anfinson. “If you ask people, they’ll say it is a great river but I don’t think they know why anymore. They just point to Mark Twain.”

The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Its watershed—or the land that flows into the river—drains all or part of 31 states. Whatever comes off the land goes into the river and its tributaries, sometimes with disastrous results.

WHITNEY CLARK, FRIENDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER: "If you’re just thinking about how the river was in 1970, you’d say the river is much improved. But the true story is much more complex.”

From the early 1890s to 1910, there were about 950 cases of typhoid per year in Minneapolis. Those epidemics were caused by raw sewage that drained into the Mississippi, which was also the source of the tap water. Naturally, this unwholesome arrangement fostered an acute public awareness about the river and its very real hazards. “You knew you were drinking Mississippi River water and you knew it could kill you,” said Anfinson.

With the construction of the city’s first water filtration plant in 1913, those typhoid deaths receded in memory, as did much common understanding of the river. Today, Anfinson notes, many Twin Cities residents don’t realize that the water they cross on daily commutes is the same stuff that comes out of their taps. And as filtration technologies have improved, he says, a measure of hubris has evolved among some of those who do. “There’s a feeling that we can treat whatever is thrown at us,” he said.

Whitney Clark, the executive director the Twin Cities-based Friends of the Mississippi River, said public perceptions about the water quality in the river vary widely and are often inaccurate.

Older people who spent time on urban stretches of the Mississippi recall a river that was largely bereft of fish, waterfowl and other wildlife. With the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, Clark points out, much of the so-called “point source pollution”—the contaminants released directly into the river by industry and municipal sewage systems—was cleaned up.

That has led to some dramatic and much-celebrated gains. In Pool 2, the stretch of river that runs from St. Paul to Hastings, many fish species that had all but vanished returned; now Pool 2 is a trophy walleye fishery. Bald eagles, once a rare sight because of the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, are again commonplace.

“There is this simplistic perception that the river is getting cleaner. And we have removed a lot of the worst pollution,” said Clark. “So if you’re just thinking about how the river was in 1970, you’d say the river is much improved. But the true story is much more complex.” That’s because while point source polluters have been reined in, non-point source pollution—principally from the contaminant- laden storm water that runs into the river from cities and farms—has become more severe, exacerbated by the advent of urban sprawl and modern agriculture.

“Basically, we’ve traded pollution sources,” said Clark.

Even clean water strategies sometimes produce unintended results. In the Twin Cities, storm sewers used to drain directly into the sanitary sewers. During heavy rainfalls, that led to overflows that deposited sewage directly into the water, created appalling stenches, choked the life from the river and eventually fueled enough public outrage that something was done.

When the cities separated the storm and sanitary systems—a multi-decades long, expensive process—the raw sewage in the river problem was largely eliminated. However, the diversion of the storm sewers from the sewage treatment plants has other implications.

“Now everything that falls on the urban landscape goes directly to a water body (without being treated),” said Clark.

While that’s a problem, Clark noted, the biggest and most politically difficult challenges the river now faces are posed by industrial agriculture.

Because so many of those big corn and soy farms are located miles from the river, people who are not versed in the minutia of hydrology and agriculture often fail to make that connection, according to Clark. And that, he said, exposes the biggest myth about the river: that it can survive our ignorance and heal itself. IQ