The St. Louis River Revival

Renewed Life Along the St. Louis

It has always been a people’s river. The St. Louis River has drawn people from ancient to modern times. It has helped them to live, and it almost died because of its link to the humans who congregated around it.

Now it is again the focus of people - but this time people who want it to survive and thrive once more.

The St. Louis River wends its way southwest in a giant C nearly 180 miles from its source in Seven Beaver Lake, about 12 miles west of Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, to Lake Superior. The river crosses over the bedrock of the 3-billion-year-old Canadian Shield, following a path weaving through sediment deposits left by glaciers some 10,000 years ago. It journeys from wilderness into urban development.

Artifacts show that as early as 7,000 B.C., people were gathering near what evolved into the modern St. Louis River. Permanent communities were established by 1,000 B.C.

The Dakota and later the Ojibway people, too, had an affinity for the river and lived beside it. It was a critical waterway by canoe, its wetlands grew abundant wild rice, fish thrived in its water. When Europeans arrived, they gravitated to the estuary formed by the shallow waters at the mouth of the river.

The first European explorers came just more than 350 years ago, and when Daniel Greysolon, the Sieur du Lhut after whom Duluth is named, landed in 1679, he established his camp just up the St. Louis at what is called the Fond du Lac/Gary-New Duluth area.

The early fur traders were drawn to the estuary. Hudson Bay Company established a post in 1689 on what would become the Wisconsin side of the bay. That post remained active until it was moved to Fond du Lac in the early 1800s. John J. Astor Park in Fond du Lac is named for the head of the American Fur Company that built a post there in 1816.

The fur trade was not the only business. In the mid-1880s, copper prospectors arrived after a low-grade copper oxide ore was discovered near the Nemadji River. By this time, Superior and Duluth had been platted and were growing cities, replacing the Ojibway villages. Wisconsin had become a state in 1848 and Minnesota in 1858.

The marshy St. Louis River estuary changed as each city established harbors and built blast furnaces, foundries, steel mills and ore docks. Harbor dredging began in 1867 for Duluth and in 1871 for Superior, creating maritime channels 6 miles up the river. Depths there changed from the natural 5 to 8 feet down to 27 feet. The ports flourished with flour and lumber mills arising on the waterfront, and coal and ore shipping were under way by the 1890s. Railroads linked to the region by 1871, including the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad along the St. Louis, remnants of which are still found between Fond du Lac and Thomson.

Dredged soils were used to fill in river wetlands and to landlock floating islands, creating land on which industrial facilities were often built.

Major logging grew and died fast around the St. Louis River after August Zachau constructed a mill to produce the lumber for his 1856 Pioneer House hotel in Superior. Henry W. Wheeler built Duluth’s first sawmill shortly thereafter. As many as 15 sawmills operated along the St. Louis during the peak of the region’s white-pine logging around 1895. The industry annually produced 1 billion board feet of lumber, according to a history developed for the St. Louis River Remedial Action Plan (RAP). White pines with trunks 18 feet around were described by a member of an expedition here in the early 1820s. By 100 years later, most of the giant pines were gone and only one mill remained along the river.

“It was really with the growth of the logging industry that the nature of the Duluth-Superior harbor began to change,” the RAP document reports. Dams, as many as 100, and log corrals were built along the river during the 1800s.

The Duluth Shipping Canal was dug by 1871, adding another way for Lake Superior to influence the river and causing a breach in the natural sandbar that had long protected and helped to create the bay habitat behind it.

The river’s power was harnessed by 1899, with the Fond du Lac Dam for Northwest Paper. Thomson Dam followed in 1907 along with other dams. Today there are five from Cloquet downriver, four publicly and one privately operated.

Heavy industries, such as paper and steel mills, developed along the river. More towns and cities sprang up. All used the river as their wastewater dump. Some residents used its banks as their unofficial landfill.

The changes were dramatic. Achille Bertrand lived in Superior from 1857 to 1886. In his memoirs, he describes the wild-to-urban transformation: “Nature’s undefiled shorelines of those days are now buried more effectively under the structures of a great country’s commerce than are the tombs of Egypt under shifting sands.”

People are not the only influences on the St. Louis River. Lake Superior, too, alters the habitat of its tributary. Seiches, fluctuations of water levels caused by atmospheric changes, can temporarily drive the river flow backward as far as the Oliver Bridge. The seiche action also changes the flow into and out of the lake and harbor.

What a Waste

By the turn of the 20th century, more than three centuries of intense human activity along the river had taken a toll. In 1928-29, a Minnesota Board of Health pollution survey of the St. Louis River from Floodwood to Lake Superior determined it was “pollutional.” Into the 1960s, several such surveys showed increased pollution levels.

In the 1950s, fish kills were reported in the river. High concentrations of industrial chemicals - sulphate ions and chlorides - were collected at Thomson Dam and Scanlon. By the 1960s, sludge was forming on the river. And it smelled bad.

Many people were concerned, but beginning about the mid-1950s the plight of the St. Louis River had found a true champion. If the river ever had a patron saint, the name would likely be St. Willard.

Willard Munger, born in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, came to Duluth in the 1930s to the city’s western side, where he eventually opened a gas station-grocery and then a motel that now bears his name, Willard Munger Inn. After failed election bids in 1934 and 1952, Willard won election in 1954 to the Minnesota House of Representatives and served there continually, except for two years, until his death.

“I think my dad was always involved in politics,” says his son, Willard “Will” Munger Jr., who owns and operates the inn. “Literally around the oil stove that was in their gas station, people would talk politics.”

Will’s father is most known for his passionate support of environmental causes. His campaign to clean up the St. Louis River delivered millions in federal and state funds and established the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District.

“I think it shocked him,” Mark Munger says of his uncle’s first encounter with the polluted St. Louis River. “He was a boy from the hardscrabble woods and lakes in Otter Tail County, where there wasn’t a lake or a stream that you couldn’t swim in and you couldn’t fish in. I think it shocked him that the St. Louis River was so foul that you could basically walk across it.”

Will remembers that, too. “When I was a kid growing up here … we were always afraid to go in the river because it was dirty. You’d never swim in it.”

Mark wrote a biography of his uncle, Mr. Environment, The Willard Munger Story, published in 2009.

Willard first lobbied for change through a sportsmen’s organization - United Northern Sportsmen - and then as a legislator. He witnessed the amazing transformation of the St. Louis River wrought by his work.

“He was swimming in it himself,” Mark says, “a river that he couldn’t put a toe in when he came here.”

“It really surprised everyone how fast the river did clean up,” says Will.

While Willard Munger gets accolades as the man who pushed for the cleanup, the facility that he got funded gets major credit for the transformation.

“Getting the WLSSD, that was a big deal,” says Mark. “When that got passed and built in the early ’70s, that was the savior of the river.”

Along Came WLSSD

The continuing recovery of the lower St. Louis River links directly to those five letters: WLSSD - the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District.

The district was created by the state Legislature in 1971 and was charged with improvement and protection of the waters of the lower St. Louis River basin. In 1974, solid waste management was added to its duties.

Its treatment plant began operations in 1978. Until then, many industrial plants discharged sewage into the river and many municipalities had minimal sewage treatment before flushing their waste. WLSSD’s plant, built in part with $100 million in federal funds, replaced 17 inadequate discharge operations. It serves 17 municipalities and five industrial customers. Within five years, improvements were noticeable.

“It didn’t take long, once the sanitary district was online, for the river to clean up,” says Bill Majewski, a longtime member of the WLSSD board and a resident who lives along the St. Louis River.

“When we moved there, we were told, ‘Don’t go in the water, don’t touch the water,’” Bill recalls.

“Nobody wanted to live on the river in the past,” agrees Sarah Lerohl, WLSSD environmental program coordinator.

“Now people feel so connected to the river,” adds Karen Anderson, WLSSD director of community relations. “People are interacting with it. People boat, kayak, canoe and fish on the water.”

WLSSD doesn’t just treat waste. It has an active education program to reduce waste and to eliminate pollution in the air, water and on land, all of which affect the river. Its staff works with industrial clients and residents to promote recycling and safe disposal of toxic chemicals at its recycling and disposal centers. It campaigns against backyard burn barrels - the largest U.S. source of dioxins in the environment - and educates about how to compost.

The river is cleaner, Karen says, “because of what people know today about what they should and shouldn’t do.”

Life Along the River

Visit the St. Louis River on a sunny day, and it’s hard to believe it was once sludge-laden and smelly. The river and its banks teem with anglers, swimmers, water-skiers, boaters, birders, hikers and picnickers. Property here is a top buy and subdivisions have developed along the river.

Duane “Duke” and Barb Tourville moved from a rural house near Island Lake, outside Duluth, to a riverside townhome about four years ago.

Access to water was paramount for Duke, who used to sail Lake Superior in his powerboat and now uses his pontoon to cruise with children, grandchildren and friends. The subdivision has a common floating dock, a fire pit by the river and access to multiple trails along the banks.

Duke’s grandfather was a tug captain and his father once operated a tour boat on the St. Louis River and in the bay, giving rides for 25 cents.

“We love water,” says Barb.

Barb, who is Mark Munger’s mother, recalls as a young mom walking along the St. Louis with one of her boys and their black retriever. The dog jumped in and ended the walk. “We had to take him home because he smelled so horrible.”

These days, Barb and Duke let their grandchildren play along the banks and pull them on an inner tube behind the pontoon, yet another testimony to the difference in the river in just a few decades. “It’s beautiful now,” she says.

“There’s a riverside marina,” says Duke, “and we see the yachts go by. Big boats, little boats, canoes, kayaks and Sea-Doos.”

Dick and Barbara Fischer have lived along the St. Louis River for about 10 years across from Clough Island.

“There are 24 families out here and we have our own dock and we keep a boat on the river,” Dick says. “We use the river a lot. We walk the waterfront trail several times a week.”

They’ve noticed increased activity, especially fishing. “Opening of fishing, there are just dozens of boats out there,” he says.

Others are noticing the good fishing. Last year, Musky Hunter Magazine sponsored a Professional Musky Tournament Trail event here. A press release said this about the river: “The not so much talked about St. Louis River showed its true colors in a very large fashion. Forty-nine muskies were registered by the anglers with at least 17 muskies over 40 inches being caught and released.”

Several charter fishing and flyfishing services now operate on the river, attesting to its angling popularity.

“The fishing is great, but don’t tell anybody,” jokes Dennis Pratt, fisheries specialist with the Wisconsin DNR. “We draw anglers from the tri-state region … for walleye, musky, northern pike, smallmouth bass.”

Sturgeon, which once spawned in the river, were reintroduced. The Wisconsin and Minnesota DNRs are waiting to see if natural spawning will occur again.

Meanwhile, upriver, Jay Cooke State Park is enjoying the benefits of a cleaner river and business is thriving for Superior Whitewater Rafting.

George and Mary Stefanyshyn started the rafting business 27 years ago. “It had just become clean,” George says of the river. “It’s a remarkable success story for the river. Prior to the efforts to clean it up, you wouldn’t want to be out there. It smelled.

“It’s a happy place to be in now.”

It’s certainly happy for their guided whitewater rafting tours and kayak rentals. Each year, George says, “we take in excess of 5,000 rafting people. The sea kayaking is only about three years old, and we’re getting pretty successful with that.”

The flatwater sea kayaks are used on the island-studded Lake Carlton (or Thomson Lake) formed by the Thomson Dam. “There are lots of nooks and crannies on Lake Carlton to explore. There are great blue heron rookeries, eagles and Captain Crunch, a 100-year-old snapping turtle.”

Both rafting and Jay Cooke State Park benefit from a new agreement with Minnesota Power to keeps water flowing through the dam. As of 1990, “a minimum flow is required for aesthetics and fishing,” says park naturalist Kristine Hiller.

The river, its famous swinging bridge and impressive geological formation are the park’s biggest draws, she says.

The park blossoms with spring wildflowers and there is a guided walk in late May to see the lady’s slippers and other flowers. More than 190 different bird species have been recorded here and deer, wolves, coyote and porcupines frequent the park grounds, though the guaranteed viewing will be something a bit smaller.

“Everybody’s going to see red squirrels,” Kristine says. “They think they own the park.”

River Watchers

While the St. Louis River is considerably revived since the 1970s, problems remain.

It has several designated Superfund sites because of past industrial uses. The pollution mainly involved waste dumping, contaminating land and sediment.

The site at Stryker Bay has been remediated with much of the sediment was covered over at a cost of $65 million, which will be paid for by the parties responsible for the contamination. The site is ready now for light industrial use.

At the former U.S. Steel plant, “they work on both land and sediment issues,” says Susan Johnson, project leader for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. There are 70 acres of sediments to assess.

In the mid-1980s, the St. Louis River was listed as one of 43 Great Lakes’ Areas of Concern due to pollution. Lake Superior had seven areas designated. As part of that designation, a Remedial Action Plan, or RAP, was created to address problems on the river from Cloquet to Lake Superior. A citizen action committee was formed to advise in the process and that evolved into the St. Louis River Alliance.

The group represents a variety of agencies along with concerned citizens interested in the health of the St. Louis. “It really reflects that we are an alliance,” says Executive Director Julene Boe. The group, which regularly monitors the St. Louis and 24 stream tributaries, gives out environmental stewardship awards and helps to educate about what the river needs. Its annual cleanup of the river is in May.

The river needs its own promoters, Julene believes. “It gets outshined by this other body of water here,” she says with amusement, pointing toward Lake Superior. “We let people know the asset that the river is. … Cleaning up our river has to become a goal not only of environmentalists, but has to become a goal of the business community.”

Julene lives overlooking the river and believes people don’t think about how they affect it right from their yards. “If you protect the shoreline, you are protecting the river.”

Two major developments this year have excited the community interested in the health of the St. Louis River.

First, purchase of Clough or Whiteside Island through The Nature Conservancy is hailed in protecting wildlife habitat. One of the largest islands situated not far from the river mouth, Clough was privately owned and being considered for development of townhomes, a hotel and a golf course. The Nature Conservancy will allow public access (there is a picnic space) while keeping it undeveloped.

Second, the St. Louis River estuary recently earned federal designation as a Natural Estuarine Research Reserve. Only two of the 28 designated NERRs are freshwater.

The NERR designation promises to bring in money for education, research, monitoring and coordination of studies being done linked to the mouth of the St. Louis.

Ralph Garono, manager of the new NERR, will set up operations in the former Boathouse Restaurant and Vista Fleet store on Barker’s Island in Superior. Research space, a waterside laboratory and an outreach center for the public and students from elementary to university will be established there. NERR will monitor and coordinating river research.

“The NERR is about partnerships - federal, state, county, city and tribal,” Ralph says. By the end of this year, he hopes to have five to six people on staff and that may double by the end of next year.

In researching the St. Louis River, Ralph says he was intrigued by the use of the waterway. “What surprises me is that it really is the nexus of Native America, industry and recreation … all of these uses superimposed on each other. … You name it, we can study it in the St. Louis.”

Getting NERR designation culminates much of the work of many people to bring the St. Louis River back to life and back into the lives of the people residing along it and playing in it. “We have these assets right in our backyard,” says Will Munger. “I do think that people are beginning to realize that.”

Thanks to help from its friends, the St. Louis is becoming, once again, the people’s river.