Where Is the Mississippi River?

On July 4, 2002, a forty-seven-year-old man named Martin Strel took a swim in a small lake—Lake Itasca—in northern Minnesota. Lake Itasca is where the Mississippi River begins. It is the top of the river, which ends 2,350 miles farther south in the Gulf of Mexico.

Martin Strel had always loved being in the water. As a child in the Central European country of Slovenia, he had spent most of his time swimming in streams and lakes and rivers. When he wasn’t swimming, he spent his time reading. He loved to read about rivers. He was fascinated by faraway rivers like the Danube in Europe, the Yangtze in China, the Amazon in South America, and the Mississippi River in the United States.

Strel swimming the Yangtze

One of his favorite books was called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. It was about a boy growing up beside the Mississippi River in Missouri. Huckleberry Finn takes a trip down the river on a raft. Someday I will swim in that river, Martin Strel thought.

Martin Strel never forgot his dream. Someday he would swim the entire length of the world’s great rivers, from the top to the bottom. Martin kept training. In the year 2000, he swam the Danube River, through ten European countries. One thousand eight hundred sixty-six miles in fifty-eight days. No one had ever swum so far in such a short time.

After that, Martin was determined to swim the Mississippi. No one had ever done that before, either.

Martin learned all he could about the river. Like all rivers, the Mississippi twists and turns and shifts and changes as it flows south, so it is hard to pinpoint its exact length, but Martin knew he would be swimming about 2,350 miles. He was hoping to swim from five to twelve hours a day.

Martin began his swim at noon on July 4, 2002. People cheered him on from the banks of the river. He swam through or around in ten states—Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Martin didn’t quite finish in as short a time as he had hoped. He swam for sixty-eight days instead of sixty-six.

Today, as Martin Strel swims the world’s rivers, he works to help people understand the importance of clean water.

“My target is to see happy fish swimming in the water,” he says.

Swimming Rivers

After the Mississippi, Martin Strel kept on swimming big rivers: the Paraná River in Argentina: 1,200 miles in twenty-four days; the Yangtze River in China: 2,487 miles in fifty-one days; the Vltava River in the Czech Republic: 226 miles in seven days; the Drava River in Central Europe: 280 miles in seven days; and the Amazon River in South America: 3,274 miles in sixty-six days, setting the world record for longest swimming journey.