uperior. This year Sharon and Dorene will walk together on some of the route, though Dorene will need return home home periodically and rejoin the group at different points along the route.
Sharon Day’s last trip taught her that water issues are familiar to people, but conducting this walk and calling more attention to the issues of clean, quality water is a never-ending task.
“I think people are becoming more aware, but there is so much we still have to do,” she said. “Here in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, our water, aquifers, are drying up because we are using so much of the water, and it doesn’t get recycled.”
She recalled, too, a grandmother in Wisconsin who handed her a crochet square on her last water walk.
“Every stitch was a prayer, the way every step is a prayer for you,” the grandmother from Black River Falls told her in making the gift and encouraging Day’s journey. “My well water is contaminated.”
Just after the 2011 walk, Day recalled a few uncomfortable incidents along the route, but now, she said, she only remembers the support and the sincere questions she got. On one memorable stop, she and Dorene were eating a sandwich outside a Missouri gas station when a tough looking crew of all-white, all-male construction workers arrived. They asked the women about what they were doing and listened to them explain their intent to call attention to water issues. The men then took up a donation and gave the women $25.
“Walk slow and pray hard,” they told the sisters, “because our water is contaminated.”
Such encounters inspired Day to walk again, to honor and help the water.
“Those are the things,” she said, “that made it worthwhile.”
People can track the Mississippi Water Walk progress on Facebook. The song below is infused with love for the water, the ethereal voice echoing through the ages, the sound of running water its only accompaniment.
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