Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Drawn to the Cannon River on an April afternoon in Northfield April 15, 2025

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The Cannon River spills over the dam by the historic Ames Mill. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

WE COME TO THE RIVER. The Cannon River, spilling over the dam by the Ames Mill. Roaring. Churning. Then flowing under the bridge and between the walls of the Riverwalk in downtown Northfield.

Enjoying beverages and time together beside the Cannon River in Bridge Square. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

We come here on a Sunday afternoon, on an April day of temps pushing into the sixties, the sun beaming warmth upon us, upon the land, upon the river. To sit. To walk. To lean toward the river. To simply be outdoors on an exceptionally lovely spring day in southern Minnesota.

The mood feels anticipatory, joyful, as we walk ourselves, and some their dogs, along the riverside path.

Historic buildings hug the Cannon River (and Division Street) in Northfield’s quaint downtown. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

I come with my Canon camera in hand. An observer. An appreciator of the sun, the sky, the warmth, the river, the historic buildings, the people and activities happening around me. In some ways, the scene seems Norman Rockwell-ish, Busy, yet tranquil. A slice of small town Americana. Everyday people enjoying each other, nature, the outdoors. Life.

Fishing by the Ames Mill dam. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

Many carry fishing poles, tackle boxes, containers of bait. Anglers press against the riverside railing, dropping lines into the water far below.

Caught in the Cannon, a sucker fish. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

I watch as a young man pulls in an unidentifiable-to-me fish (later identified as a white sucker by my husband). His friend snaps a photo of the proud angler and his first catch of the day.

The top section of the Riverwalk Poetry Steps. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

After hanging around the river by Bridge Square for a bit, I descend the colorful Riverwalk Poetry Steps, a river poem crafted by a collaboration of 17 poets. We come to the river starry-eyed/across bridges reaching out to neighbors/over the river’s rushing waters…

Following the Riverwalk to find a fishing spot along the Cannon River. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

I trail behind a couple, a family, a dog, another family, all of us connected by the water, by this place, on this spring day. I’m the only one to pause and read the poetry.

A family fishes the Cannon. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

Atop the river wall, young women sit, sans shoes, while they fish. We all watch the river flow. Bobbers bob. A pair of ducks—one pure white—flies low, skimming the water before landing upon the surface of the Cannon.

“Lady Cannon,” a riverside mural by Maya Kenney and Raquel Santamaria. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

Across the river, Lady Cannon watches. Fish swim in her tangled waves of locks, flowing like water down steps toward the river. She is the art of the Cannon.

On the pedestrian bridge looking toward the Cannon and the Ames Mill, right in the distance. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo April 2025)

I see art, too, in a railing shadowed upon the pedestrian bridge. I linger, mesmerized by the moving water, the riverside historic flour mill a block away.

There’s so much to take in here. So much that connects us. The sun, the sky, the land. And the river that flows beside and below us.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reflections on harvest from fields to art October 13, 2022

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Harvesting, left, in a field along a gravel road near Dundas. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

DUST HANGS OVER THE LANDSCAPE like smoke. Hazy. The air dirty with debris kicked up by combines sweeping across corn and soybean fields in southern Minnesota. Harvest is well underway here as farmers bring in the season’s crops.

Trucks haul harvested crops from fields to bins and/or grain elevators. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

From back country gravel roads to the interstate, I’ve witnessed this scene unfolding before me in recent weeks. Combines chomping. Harvested corn and beans spilling into grain trucks.

Harvesting beans. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo October 2022)

Farmers work all hours of the day and night in the rush to finish gathering crops before winter arrives. In the dark of night, bright headlights spotlight fields. In daylight, sunlight filters through clouds of dust.

A grain truck pulls into a farmer’s grain drying and storage complex. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

Harvest is part of my DNA by having been raised on a southwestern Minnesota crop and dairy farm. Decades removed from the land, I still take notice of the harvest. The smell. The hues. The hurry. I understand this season in rural Minnesota.

“Harvest” by Raymond Jacobson. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

In nearby Northfield, I recently happened upon a bronze sculpture, “Harvest,” which had gone unnoticed by me. It’s been there since 2008 at Sesquicentennial Legacy Plaza along the Cannon River, near the post office, near Bridge Square. In all my visits to Northfield, to the Riverwalk area, I missed this public art created by Raymond Jacobson.

Close-up details of the wheat incorporated into “Harvest.” (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

The historic Ames Mill along the Cannon River. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

An interpretation of a stone grist mill for grinding wheat into flour is included in the sculpture. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

It’s beautiful, fitting for a community rooted in agriculture. The 3,000-pound sculpture symbolizes Northfield’s heritage of wheat farming and milling. Just across the river sits the Ames Mill, where the gristmill in the late 1860s produced 150 barrels of wheat daily.

Malt-O-Meal was a major funder for the sculpture. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

In 1927, John Campbell of the Campbell Cereal Company took over the mill and began producing Malt-O-Meal hot cereal. Today Post Consumer Brands owns the mill and still makes that hot cereal. Dry cereal is manufactured at a nearby production facility. Many days the scent of cereal wafts over Northfield.

Harvested wheat and a plowed field cast into bronze. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

All of this—the smell of cereal, the “Harvest” sculpture, the historic Ames Mill—reminds me of the importance of agriculture in our region. It reminds me, too, of my rural roots. I am grateful for my farm upbringing. I am grateful, too, for those who today plant, tend and harvest crops. They are essential to our economy, feeding the world, providing raw product.

Wheat stalk details on an informational plaque which is nearly impossible to read due to weathering of the writing. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2022)

That this season of harvest is honored in a “Harvest” sculpture shows a deep appreciation for history, heritage and agriculture in Northfield. The public art gives me pause to reflect on inspiration in creativity. Today I celebrate the artistic interpretation of harvest displayed along the banks of the Cannon River.

© Copyright 2022 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Welcome to the river in Northfield April 26, 2021

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The historic Ames Mill hugs the Cannon River at the dam in downtown Northfield, Minnesota.

THE RIVER RUNS THROUGH. Behind businesses, over the dam by the aged mill, under bridges…

Bridging the Cannon by Bridge Square.

In Northfield, the Cannon River always draws me. There’s something about water. About the power of a river, the mesmerizing movement, the rise and fall thereof, the sense of peace which flows through me when I view water. Or watch fire. Or hear wind.

Posted on the railing by the dam, a reminder that we’re still in a pandemic.

On a recent Sunday, Randy and I headed toward the Riverwalk in the heart of historic downtown Northfield. We passed, and paused, at Bridge Square, the community’s gathering place. Every town should have a spot like this for folks to meet, to center causes, to converse or to simply sit.

We stopped to watch the Cannon spill over the Ames Mill Dam next to the 1865 Malt-O-Meal (now Post Consumer Brands) mill that still produces hot cereal, the scent often wafting over the city.

A flowering tree bursts color into Bridge Square near the river.
Spring in art, at the local tourism office.

I delighted in a blossoming tree and the spring-themed art painted on the front window of the Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism office. Seemingly small things like this add an artsy vibe to Northfield. Details matter. Art matters. Nature matters.

The narrow walkway by the Contented Cow (a British style pub) leads to Division Street from the Riverwalk.

When we reached the riverside back of the Contented Cow, I noticed for the first time the Holstein painted retaining walls and tables. Why had I not previously seen this? It appears to have been here for awhile.

The back of an aged building photographed from the Riverwalk.

I find backs of buildings bare bones interesting, like nouns without adjectives.

Words on the Riverwalk stairway.

That’s the thing about slowing down. Noticing. Sometimes we fail to walk at a pace that allows us to see, truly see, the world around us. The backs of buildings. The flow of the river. To take it all in, starry-eyed at the beauty which surrounds us.

© Copyright 2021 Audrey Kletscher Helbling