The Joy Of The Wayback Machine

A small stream runs through an ignorable culvert under a county road. In a car, it's just a bump, if even that. Perhaps a flash, a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off water. You'd never think it was important. You'd never think you'd just crossed history.

This morning, however, 2000 feet AGL over the lakes of western Minnesota, this stream is completely fascinating. Not only for what it is, but for what it was, a path for riverboats connecting the lakes. The early-morning air is clear, warm, calm, the flying as gentle as a soft Sunday drive, and I'm flying with my friend Mike Paulson. This is a trip we've talked about for a very long time. Mike loves all sorts of history and this is home ground. This is where he grew up. The riverboats stopped a century ago. We're searching for history from the air.

It's not very far from the Fargo Jet Center to the Minnesota lakes, and there are more recent stories along the way. "My uncle had a shotgun he thought was becoming unsafe," Mike tells me as we fly over Silver Lake. "The public access used to be here on the west side." Mike points to a spot, obvious from the air, irrelevant on the ground. "He went there one day and heaved the gun out as far as he could." Mike is also a scuba diver. "Many years later, I spent a lot of time diving there, looking for that gun. Never did find it."

A few minutes later, we're over Big Cormorant Lake and a YMCA camp. "See the sunken island?" Mike asks. Shaped like a spreading tree with the trunk heading toward the shore, the rise in the ground is unmissable. But it's also underwater---all but one sliver invisible from the shore. "In the 1930s, when the water levels were lower, campers used to walk out there all the time. There were picnic tables and everything."

This is one of the deep joys of flying a small airplane. You see the ground more clearly. You see how roads and rivers and lakes connect. You begin to wonder about stories, how everything came to be this way, and suddenly wish you had a Wayback Machine. Then you realize you do.

We begin at the south end of Detroit Lake, bank south to follow the water. Mike flies while I take pictures, and he points out every place the water leaves one lake to join another. It's all amazingly pretty.

According to a MNopedia online entry called "Pelican Valley Navigation Company," the riverboats ran from 1889 to 1918. There were no roads, no cars, just a lot of people who wanted to enjoy the lakes. The boats cruised from Detroit Lakes to Pelican Rapids. They crossed Muskrat Lake and made their way into the Pelican River and then through the Dunton Locks. They crossed Lake Sallie and Lake Melissa, crossed a millpond behind Bucks Mill dam. They pulled up to the dock in Shoreham, with the hotel and nightclub set next to the landing. They crossed Little Pelican and Big Pelican Lakes. The boats were log-burning paddle wheelers, making three trips a day. Eventually, though, the cars and the roads arrived. The boats went out of business and were scuttled in Muskrat Lake.

Mike and I turn and bank and follow the watercourse. Sunlight reflects off the water. I've lived here for nearly 30 years. I had no idea. And history is no longer just an idea when you can see the whole path leading away from your propeller.

Sometimes the land itself gives up the story. In North Dakota, you can see lines in the ground where rocks and debris trapped in retreating glaciers cut the soil. In the Red River Valley, you can see the shape of the Pleistocene Lake Agassiz.

Sometimes the human story makes the land a bit more connected, a bit more mysterious, a bit more wonderful. I didn't know about the riverboats. Before today, I had seen the streams and paid them no attention at all. But now I know the story and have flown the route. For me, this part of the world is deeper, more storied, more specific and real. Altitude raises some interesting questions. History makes for some interesting answers. PP

Scott Olsen is a professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. He holds the world and national records for the fastest flight across North Dakota in a Cessna 152. Scott's books include "Hard Air," "Never Land" and "Prairie Sky."