![A passenger boat sails towards the Aerial bridge in Duluth, Minnesota.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1453252861_100707011greatlakes012016.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
![A passenger boat sails towards the Aerial bridge in Duluth, Minnesota.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1453252861_100707011greatlakes012016.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
![Hikers climb up a hill at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DSC00446-768x1024-e1461604022994.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
From Lands End to Golden Gate: Discovering African American History on San Francisco’s Coast!
This account of a recent Outdoor Afro hike in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area describes how the histories of African Americans and their experiences in nature are part of the learning that takes place during Outdoor Afro’s adventures. Often these histories are left out of “official” interpretive materials.
![People participating in an intertribal water ceremony.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Offering-Prayers-e1461603626776.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Hundreds Participate in Flint’s Intertribal Water Ceremony
![The Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River. The map shows stream courses from sections of Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/p15_s01_sm-e1461600581869.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Introduction to Issue Two
We commonly think of rivers as, for the most part, staying where they belong, in the river bed, occasionally coming out into the floodplain under fairly predictable conditions conducive to high water that we call “floods.” The writing in this issue of Open Rivers belies this notion of predictability, to a large degree.
![The muddy deserted streets of flood ravaged Princeville, North Carolina stand in silent testimony to the destruction wrought by the Tar River. Princeville, NC 9/28/99.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/405-e1461596239944.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Princeville and the Environmental Landscape of Race
![Patrick wading in a lake circa 1963. Image courtesy Patrick Hamilton.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/pat-23-1-e1461595979889.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Future River—The Mississippi in Light of a Lifetime Immersion in Water
I love water. Always have, always will. I delight in skimming across it in my kayak and dropping down into it with mask, fins, and snorkel. I was born in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and credit my early years amidst the lakes and streams of west-central Minnesota with imbuing me with a fascination of water that has endured my whole life.
![Flooding in New Orleans. NASA image courtesy Lawrence Ong, EO-1 Mission Science Office, NASA GSFC.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Flooding-in-New-Orleans-NASA-LandSat-image-e1461596761866.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Disturbing the Mississippi: The Language of Science, Engineering, and River Restoration
Around the world, from the U.K. to India, governments and NGOs are formulating plans and raising funds to restore river and floodplain habitat. Much of this restoration work is undertaken in the interest of minimizing or rolling back the effects of disturbances, such as hurricanes, erosion, and urban development, and shoring up resilience, a river’s natural ability to resist disturbances. However, the words used to explain river systems have come to explain what threatens them, and to explain what river restoration must therefore accomplish. Words shape deeds.
![People walking between sites at Oheyawahi/Pilot Knob . Photo by Michael Murray; courtesy of the Minnesota Humanities Center.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PilotKnob_0051.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Toward a Pedagogy of Place: the Bdote Field Trip and Absent Narratives in the Classroom
![Tributaries of the Chester River by J. Albert Bowden II.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/15041856696_d78448bf41_o-e1461600270372.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Global Water Data: We’ll Show You the World, Sort Of
![Confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. Using satellite imagery, we can compare the amount of sediment coming into the Mississippi River from the Minnesota River (the lower river). Satellite Image Courtesy of DigitalGlobe Foundation.](https://i0.wp.com/openrivers.lib.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/04_04_2012_R1C1-e1461597021393.jpg?fit=330%2C220&ssl=1)
Maps, Geographies, and the Mississippi
U-Spatial provides support for spatial research. We make maps. And help colleagues at the University of Minnesota discover and analyze geospatial data. We collaborate with people in public health, nursing, business, history, anthropology, education, design, engineering, natural resources, and even dentistry.