The son’s response is plain: “Well, duh, that’s going to be a short book then, Dad, because the answer is yes!” Of course a river is alive.

The possibility that a river is alive “changes the world,” he says. It forces us to think differently. If nature is alive, then it should excite our imaginative sympathies.

We Minnesotans are almost all lucky enough to live near a river. The Mississippi, Minnesota, Red, Pigeon, Cascade, Crow, St. Croix, St. Louis, Whitewater, Zumbro and thousands of other waterways ...