Saint Louis River

The Saint Louis River is a river in the U.S. states of Minnesota and Wisconsin that flows into Lake Superior. The largest U.S. river to flow into the lake, it is 192 miles (309 km) in length and starts 13 miles (21 km) east of Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota. The river's watershed covers 3,634 square miles (9,410 km2). Near the Twin Ports of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin, the river becomes a freshwater estuary.

According to Warren Upham, the Ojibwe name of the river is Gichigami-ziibi (Great-lake River). He notes:

"The river was probably so named by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (1685–1749), who was a very active explorer, in the years 1731 and onward, of the vast country from Pigeon River and Rainy Lake to the Saskatchewan and Missouri Rivers, establishing trading posts and missions. The king of France in 1749, shortly before the death of La Vérendrye, conferred on him the cross of St. Louis as a recognition of the importance of his discoveries, and thence the name of the St. Louis River appears to have come. On Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin's map (1688) and Philippe Buache's map (1754), it is called the Rivière du Fond du Lac, and the map by Gilles Robert de Vaugondy (1755) and Jonathan Carver's map (1778) are the earliest to give the present name."

The river was a vital link connecting the Mississippi waterways to the west with the Great Lakes to the east. Jay Cooke State Park is located hear the mouth of the river and is the site of a canoe portage used by Native Americans, European explorers, fur traders, Voyageurs, coureurs des bois, and missionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a rough trail of steep hills and swamps that began at the foot of the rapids above Fond du Lac ("head of the lake") and climbed some 450 feet (140 m) to the present village of Carlton. Above Carlton travelers proceeded upstream and continued on to Lake Vermillion and the Rainy River. Or they may have traveled southwest up the East Savanna River, portaged the grueling 6 mile long Savanna Portage (now a state park), and then paddled on to the Mississippi River.

By the mid 20th century, the lower St. Louis River became one of the most heavily polluted waterways in the state. Holling Clancy Holling, in his 1941 book Paddle-to-the-Sea, illustrated the polluted state of the St. Louis River. By 1975, the river became an Environmental Protection Agency Area of Concern. The Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD) was established in 1971 to address serious pollution problems in the lower St. Louis River Basin. WLSSD's regional wastewater treatment plant began operating in 1978. Within two years, fish populations rebounded and anglers began returning to the river. Through the 1980s and 1990s, additional cleanups took place, and the river is now significantly less polluted.

The river has fishing including walleye, northern pike, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, bluegill, black crappie, and channel catfish populations. Other species of rough fish, particularly Shorthead Redhorse and White Sucker. Attempts to introduce sturgeon are underway, if caught, are to be returned. The river is frequented by those travelling the Minnesota DNR St. Louis River Water Trail, which has campsites and angling.

The St. Louis River Trail Association is constructing of a long-distance hiking trail along the majority of the river. Started in early 2012, with cooperation from the Minnesota DNR, the trail association hopes to have its first 36-mile section completed in 2015.