The Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. It is about 2,320 miles long!

How could we tour the Mississippi River on a riverboat?

How do we get there from Kalamazoo?

To get to the very beginning of the Mississippi River we could drive from Kalamazoo to Lake Itasca, Minnesota. The Mississippi River begins at Lake Itasca.

We couldn’t get on a riverboat at Lake Itasca because the river is too small there. This man wanted to travel the whole length of the Mississippi River in a canoe. Here he is starting the trip where the Mississippi River begins: coming out of Lake Itasca.

The Mississippi River soon gets much wider. At one point it is over 1 mile wide.

We could travel most of the river in a riverboat.

Many other rivers flow into the Mississippi River, including the Missouri River, the Illinois River, the Ohio River, the Arkansas River, and the Red River.

The Mississippi River runs through ten states and was used to make parts of these states’ borders. The middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was the line to define the borders between states. The river has shifted since that time, but the state borders of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Akansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi have not changed.