No. 88. Wingdams below Winona, Minnesota 1889

Henry Bosse’s cyanotype captures the wing dams below Winona, Minnesota. These structures, jutting into the Mississippi, were designed to deepen the river’s channel, a crucial artery for burgeoning steamboat commerce. Consider the circle framing this scene. The circle, a potent symbol across cultures, often represents totality, the eternal, and the cyclical nature of time. In medieval cosmology, it enclosed the world. Yet, here, it encloses a manipulated landscape. Compare this to maps of the same region made by indigenous people before colonization, maps that reflect a symbiotic relationship with the river and its ebbs and flows. The wing dams, linear and rigid, stand in stark contrast to the river’s natural curves. Do these shapes trigger a subtle discord within us? An awareness of nature tamed, of a primal landscape reshaped to serve human ambition? This tension between the circle—a symbol of nature's wholeness—and the straight lines of the wing dams underscores the complex interplay between humanity and the environment. The dams are a testament to our ceaseless drive to reshape our world, to mold nature to our will.