eagles

Yet more on Gilfillan. He seems absolutely obsessed with the idea of Itasca as the heart of the continent and, indeed, the nation. Witness these comments on eagles:

On the shores of Lake Breck and almost overhanging its waters, two American eagles have built their nest in a tall, yellow pine, and as we came bursting through the dense undergrowth they came sailing a long way to meet us, as if inquiring what this unusual intrusion upon their solitary haunts meant, and when we got to Lake Itasca itself there was another American eagle flying and circling over its waters, as if the national bird were keeping watch over the cradle of the national life. Strange to say, the only American eagles we saw in a journey of several hundred miles in the wilderness, we saw at that spot.