Introduction

Introduction to Issue 29 | Great Lakes, Peril & Promise

As a river flows, it carries things with it: sediment, debris, but also history and memory. It transforms the landscape around it even as the landscape reciprocally shapes the river. Over the past decade, Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community has sought to do the same—carrying stories and providing a space where ideas can flow, connect, and transform. After ten years of publication, growth, and learning alongside our community, Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community will conclude its work as a journal. This is both a bittersweet and proud moment for all who have been part of this journey.

Black-and-white photo of the massive freighter Edmund Fitzgerald seen from the water, its long, dark hull stretching into the distance with a white pilothouse at the bow and a tall smokestack near the stern. Alt text written with Perplexity AI.
Feature

Our Changing Relationship to Lake Superior, 1975-2025

This Open Rivers feature is occasioned by the fiftieth anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. The Fitzgerald was a ship moving taconite (iron ore) across the Great Lakes between Silver Bay, Minnesota, and steel mills near Detroit and Toledo. On November 9, 1975, the Fitzgerald was scheduled to transport taconite from Superior, Wisconsin, to Zug Island near Detroit. The ship never made it; the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost in a storm with no survivors—her entire crew of 29 men. We carry the Fitzgerald in our imagination and in our relationship with the lake.

Rocky shoreline at Pebble Beach on Kelleys Island with small waves rolling in and a soft orange sunset breaking through thick gray clouds over the open waters of Lake Erie. Alt text written using Perplexity AI.
Feature

Rights of Nature and the Lake Erie Bill of Rights

On February 26, 2019, citizens of Toledo, Ohio, passed legislation called the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), which created legal standing for nature in the state of Ohio by giving individual citizens the right to sue on behalf of the Lake Erie ecosystem. The initial motivation for organizing for the LEBOR came from residents who experienced the Toledo Water Crisis, a three-day period in August 2014 when residents could not drink their tap water due to a harmful algal bloom (HAB) that developed near a water intake station in the Maumee River. Microcystin, a toxin that can affect the liver and nervous system, was detected in the water. The main complaint of Toledoans for Safe Water (TFSW), the community group behind the LEBOR, was that little had been done to improve or protect Lake Erie water quality in the years since the crisis in 2014.

A sunset on Mille Lacs Lake as seen from Father Hennepin State Park near Isle, Minnesota. Image courtesy of Tom Webster (CC-BY-2.0).
Geographies

Misi-zaaga’iganing (Mille Lacs Lake)

Mille Lacs Lake is the second largest lake in Minnesota and archaeological evidence suggests that it was one of the first areas that humans settled in the region. Many different groups of people have called the area around the lake home. A number of Native American tribes have lived around the lake throughout time. When some of the first Europeans came through the area in the 1600s they were met by the Cheyenne. During the next century, as the Cheyenne migrated westward, the Dakota moved into the area and called the lake Bdé Wakán or Mystic Lake. When the Ojibwe arrived in the mid-eighteenth century, they called the lake Misi-zaaga’iganing, the lake that spreads all over. The first Europeans to travel through the area were French explorers, followed by French and British traders, and eventually Americans that set up towns and settlements around the lake. Following a series of treaties that resulted in the establishment of the state of Minnesota, loggers flooded into the area for the timber that was found throughout the forest surrounding the lake.

A bustling pedestrian street scene in a downtown shopping district, with people walking along a brick-paved walkway lined with leafy trees, outdoor café seating, and storefronts on both sides under overcast daylight. The scene shows the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, Vermont, looking south from Bank Street. Alt text generated using Perplexity AI.
Perspectives

Looking for a US ‘climate haven’ away from disaster risks?

Southeast Michigan seemed like the perfect “climate haven.” “My family has owned my home since the ’60s. … Even when my dad was a kid and lived there, no floods, no floods, no floods, no floods. Until [2021],” one southeast Michigan resident told us. That June, a storm dumped more than 6 inches of rain on the region, overloading stormwater systems and flooding homes. That sense of living through unexpected and unprecedented disasters resonates with more Americans each year, we have found in our research into the past, present and future of risk and resilience. An analysis of federal disaster declarations for weather-related events puts more data behind the fears – the average number of disaster declarations has skyrocketed since 2000 to nearly twice that of the preceding 20-year period.

Large close-up of small waves in Lake Erie, the water an opaque bright yellow‑green from a dense harmful algal bloom near Pelee Island. Alt text written using Perplexity AI.
Primary Sources

Climate Change Threatens Drinking Water Quality Across The Great Lakes

“Do Not Drink/Do Not Boil” is not what anyone wants to hear about their city’s tap water. But the combined effects of climate change and degraded water quality could make such warnings more frequent across the Great Lakes region. A preview occurred on July 31, 2014, when a nasty green slime – properly known as a harmful algal bloom, or HAB – developed in the western basin of Lake Erie. Before long it had overwhelmed the Toledo Water Intake Crib, which provides drinking water to nearly 500,000 people in and around the city. Tests revealed that the algae was producing microcystin, a sometimes deadly liver toxin and suspected carcinogen. Unlike some other toxins, microcystin can’t be rendered harmless by boiling. So the city issued a “Do Not Drink/Do Not Boil” order that set off a three-day crisis.

Introduction

Introduction to Issue 28 | Mississippi River Open School

By Laurie Moberg, Editor. In the current moment, I find myself struggling with seemingly endless uncertainties. Environmental, political, social, and personal conditions create a charged sense of precarity and anxiety, like sharp rocks poking through smooth water of a river, scratching at my foot as I cross or catching my paddle as I try to stay afloat. And I suspect I’m not alone. Amid this turbulence, I’m looking for “glimmers”—the small moments that give me hope, joy, calmness, and connection.

A vibrant mural painted on a long wall in Prampram, Ghana, depicting historical and cultural themes. The artwork includes an image of a figure in regal attire, a portrait of another individual, and a raised fist. Text on the mural features quotes, including one referencing Marcus Garvey. The wall is set against a sandy ground with a palm tree to the left and a partly cloudy sky above. Image courtesy of Ebony Aya. Alt text generated by Perplexity AI.
Feature (Peer Review)

Spirituality and Ecology: (Re)Membering Black Women’s Legacies

By Ebony Aya. I don’t have a green thumb, or at least one I have discovered yet. Keeping my indoor plants alive has been an ongoing struggle! And the outside plants? On the off chance that I do decide to plant, which I did try to do for several years, my yields are few and far between. I sometimes forget to water. Rather than doing the necessary research to understand what things can actually grow in my environment, I have often just dived right in to see what works.

Introduction

Action Camps Everywhere: Solidarity Programs in the Anthropocene

By John Kim. The Mississippi River Open School for Kinship and Social Exchange (Open School) (2022–2025) has engaged pressing issues at the intersections of race, environment, and extraction through education, cultural exchange, and action. A core aspect of this work has been partnerships with communities, many on the front line of struggles against resource extraction and climate-change-related natural disasters.