The name “Itasca,” despite its Indian sound, came from two Latin words, veritas caput (“true head”), that Henry Rowe Schoolcraft assembled. Schoolcraft—led by the Chippewa, Yellow Head—traced the Mississippi to Itasca in order to settle an old dispute about the source of the river (the fact is, several ponds feed Itasca). He recorded in his log that the area was full of “voracious, long-billed, dyspeptic mosquitoes,” and another explorer wrote that a swarm extinguished his lantern flame. A century and a half later, the dark timber still sounded with their whine, their proboscises were still
...more
