Where on the Mississippi is Devin Brown? Week Four.

Editor’s Note: This is an update to the story Kayaker Devin Brown to challenge the mighty Mississippi. Check back each week as we continue to follow Devin Brown’s trek down the Mississippi River.

As Devin Brown set out on the fourth week on her “Source to Sea” journey she is steadily making her way toward Mile Marker Zero where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

Flooding on the river, including many locations in Iowa and Wisconsin, has presented its fair share of challenges, especially when approaching the many locks and dams along the upper Mississippi. Undeterred, Brown has logged a number of 50+ mile days, not to mention a 60-mile day as well. Here is a recent Instagram post from her support team tracking her progress.

Some of the places she’s past through during the last week or so include: Lock #3 above Red Wing, Minnesota; Diamond Island, Wisconsin; the confluence of the Chippewa River; Blackhawk Campground; Lock #9 at Eastman, Wisconsin; Henderson Island, Iowa; and the confluence of the Wisconsin River near the small cities of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and McGregor, Iowa.

Also, as part of our weekly series, “Where on the Mississippi is Devin,” we’ll include a history note about some place that Brown’s passed through on her way to Mile Marker Zero. See below for this week’s Mississippi River History Note.

Mississippi River History Note

Along the banks of the Mississippi River, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin’s second oldest city sits below a line of tall river bluffs and is the site of several National Historic Landmarks. The area around Prairie du Chien, both on the Wisconsin and Iowa sides of the River was long inhabited by a number of Indigenous tribes, including the Sioux, Sauk, Fox, Ioway, Omaha, Otoe, and Ho-Chunk. And from 1825 to 1830, these tribes all ceded much of their land to the United States government through a series of four  accords collectively known as the Treaties of Prairie du Chien.