We left the lake on the Canadian border about nine in the morning. I hadn’t exactly been sleeping well at the conference, and in this moment I was hardly well rested. But all these observations feel like excuses. Tired or alert, I hadn’t a clue what I was seeing, only a feel. And the feel was wondrous…as the highway suddenly flew out into space, metal girders and pavement airborne. And below a river wider than any in California, a massive thing barely contained in an immense canyon. Flowing and flowing. The last I saw, its waters were rushing toward Lake Superior. Such is the perspective of a desert boy, now apparently a desert old man.

It’s an annual trip for me, this drive to and from Boundary Waters, Minnesota. I attend a conference in this region of lakes, famous for canoeing. The experience reminds me of how little I know about my own country. The national culture is young and turbulent. Fragile might be a better word. But the constant is, of course, the land itself.

It does say something about our nation that the only reliable stop midway on route from Canada to Minneapolis is a Walmart near the Minnesotan town of Cloquet. There’s a restroom in the store. We use it. Many conference attendees buy sandwiches. After a week away from the Internet and, in fact, modernity, Walmart is always a shock. But it’s mostly a welcome shock. Chance to stretch and pee.

It was here in the parking area that I asked about the river. What was it? No one, including several people from Minnesota, actually knew. But one generally savvy man pointed out that the water was green, a sign of mining. Which fits with the location. This part of Minnesota produces much of the nation’s iron ore. The latter is transported by train to nearby Duluth. Here the railway tracks ascend high over the harbor. One by one the train cars are lifted and tilted to dump their mineral tonnage directly onto ships. It is a boy’s dream of massive mechanisms.

Lake Superior defies dreams, however. There’s nothing else like it anywhere, an inland freshwater sea. Which is, of course, a lake. Where storms are so fierce that ore freighters have been literally broken in two, then sunk beyond the reach of rescue vessels. The lake is hundreds of feet deep.

So there I was outside the Walmart learning about a polluted river that has no name. Except that there are so many rivers in this part of Minnesota that no one cares about the names. I wanted to grab the nearest person in the parking lot and point out that this is your land, my land. And who gave anyone the right to turn an entire river into an industrial toilet? Let’s stop it, I wanted to tell them. Let’s play nicely together.

As you can see, I had been out of circulation for a week, far from Trump’s America. No, here in the so called real world, rivers run green. Green with money, green with envy, who can say?

Back on the bus, there was nothing between the Walmart and the airport, 150 miles south. Nothing but more rivers, incredible lakes, bogs and other features of the northern lands. Back home, someone from a nature organization called to ask for money. Yes, I said, not even bothering to ask why.