Gooseberry Falls
The story
The Gooseberry River comes down to Lake Superior over a run of waterfalls, the Upper, Middle and Lower Falls, which drop over ledges of basalt. The basalt formed from lava flows about 1.1 billion years ago. Between 1934 and 1941 the Civilian Conservation Corps built nearly all of the park's buildings from local stone, and they still stand.
Gooseberry Falls State Park, near Two Harbors, Minnesota
The same moment, today
A mug of black tea left on the counter cools down to a dark amber color. When someone pours it out into a white sink, the liquid runs light brown, almost golden where the light hits it. It isn't dirty water. It just picked up its color from the dried leaves that soaked in it. If someone turns the cold tap on full blast over it, the brown water churns into thick white foam at the drain. The color stays, but the bubbles sit right on top.
The Gooseberry River runs the same way. It runs brown with tannin from the forest upstream. The river drops toward Lake Superior across wide ledges of dark basalt. That basalt formed from lava flows about 1.1 billion years ago. It cooled in thick tiers, and the river falls over three main drops called Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls. The amber water breaks into wide sheets of white foam each time it hits a lower shelf.
The lesson
Walk down to the Lower Falls when the spring runoff starts. The river runs high and fast then, and the cold spray blows right onto the trail.
Where this comes from
Company 707, 1934
In May 1934, young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps set up Camp SP-2 near the mouth of the river. They belonged to Company 707. Over the next seven years, they quarried dark basalt right from the area and cut it by hand. They used that stone to build more than eighty park structures, including bridges, log buildings, and a water tower. They also built a three-hundred-foot stone concourse wall along the highway. Those buildings are still standing today.
A small reminder, on the river trail or the kitchen counter, that brown water from the woods isn't dirty water.
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