 If you watch Common Ground online, consider becoming a member or making a donation at lptv.org. Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people November 4th, 2008. My name is John Eggers. I live on the shores of Lake Julie with my wife, Kathy. We moved here about seven years ago. I am a writer, and I am an educator, and I enjoy public speaking. I came to Medjie to be principal of Red Lake High School, and when we moved to Lake Julia, I was intrigued at how did Lake Julia get its name. And so I wrote the book in search of Beltrami's heart, named after, of course, Jackmobile Tramie, which this county is named after. When we moved to Lake Julia seven years ago, I was intrigued by the story behind it. Of course, I lived in Beltrami County for about 30 years, but no one ever really told me the story about how it got its name. And so when we moved to Lake Julia, I was a member of the Beltrami County Historical Society, and the members there kept talking about, well, do you know the story about Jackmobile Tramie? And I didn't. So that really inspired me to look more into it. And of course, since I live on Lake Julia, I wanted to know how it got its name. When I first began writing the book, I had intended to write it as an adult book. But then in doing the research about the story, I found that there were two or three other books that already had been written about Jackmobile Tramie. And also, of course, he had his own two very lengthy diaries about his travels in Europe, in the United States, in Mexico, and they tell a story about his adventures as well. So I decided it really is a story of adventure, intrigue, a little bit of romance. So why not make it into a children's book? What I knew about the history already was really not much. And I think that's probably true of most people in Beltrami County, that they know the county is named Beltrami, but they don't know how it got its name. And very few know about the story about Jackmobile Tramie. Jackmobile was a man who came from a learned family. He had 16 brothers and sisters that came out of Pergamot, Italy. And his father was in the judicial system, so he had some money. But he was intrigued about adventure. He was intrigued with languages. He had a penchant for learning about other cultures. And he traveled through Europe initially, and then he went to Liverpool, England, and came from Liverpool, then to the United States. And when he came to the United States, he had a visit with President Monroe, which was interesting because in those days, you could actually go to the White House and knock on the door and President Monroe would answer the door and you could go in and visit President Monroe. But anyway, President Monroe, I think, well, if you really want adventure, you should go out west. As Jackmobile made his way out west, he encountered many Native Americans. And so he really tried to draw the Native Americans out and learn about their culture, learn some of their language. And along the way, he began to collect all kinds of Native American artifacts, which are now in a museum in Pergamot, Italy. But I think that was probably the most interesting thing that Jackmobile learned in the United States, other than the fact that it was a wilderness. A lot of things just to be discovered. When he left Washington, D.C., he traveled up to St. Louis and from St. Louis on a boat called the Virginian, which was the first steamship to go up to Mississippi. Along the way, there were many Native Americans living and the boat would stop and he would get out and he would begin trading with them. And he did this all the way up through Minnesota and into the Minnesota Territory and even on the way back. He just kept trading with Native Americans to get certain artifacts that he enjoyed and put them in his canoe. Well, when Jacomo came to Minnesota, it was not a state at the time, it was still a territory, and he came to Fort Snelling, which at the time was not called Fort Snelling, it was called Fort St. Anthony. But when he arrived at Fort Snelling, the Colonel of Snelling told him about a map-making group that was going to leave shortly. He persuaded the major long at the time who was not a very friendly person to take Jacomo with him. And so he didn't want to do it because he thought Jacomo really didn't know his way around the wilderness very well but Colonel Snelling liked Jacomo and he persuaded the major long to take him. And when they arrived at the town of Pembina, which is northwest of here, right near the Canadian border, then that's when they parted companies and Jacomo and his way and Major Long went his way to continue his map-making journey. Jacomo who didn't really learn how to paddle a canoe very well and of course these were birch bar canoes and they were probably very tipping, not like our canoes today. And he just could not navigate that canoe very well and it shows him pulling the canoe which he did up the river full of the things that he had collected and we see here that he used his umbrella to protect his artifacts from the sun. This part of Beltrami County is really rich in Jacomo Beltrami history. If you can envision him coming from a city Pembina in northwestern Minnesota and Dakota and then traveling down to Red Lake back in the 1820s and then from Red Lake through his Native American friends he was talking to them about, well do you know where the source of this great river is? And of course they knew because they had been here so sure we can take you there. And so he left Red Lake, went up a river called the Mud River which is still there today and then into Lake Puposki which was Mud Lake at one time and that of course is still there today in Lake Puposki into Lake Julia. And when he came to Lake Julia he climbed what we think was probably Buena Vista behind us, that big hill, the big ski hill there and noticed that the waters from Lake Julia flowed north and they flowed south and he proclaimed this to be the farthest point north for the Mississippi. But when I talked to our students about Jacomo Beltrami I mentioned that this is a book about adventure and about having dreams and when Jacomo left Italy in 1820 he was in his 40s. He was more or less exiled from Italy because he had served with the Napoleon army initially and Napoleon did not have a good name in Italy and so he was really kind of forced out of Italy but had this idea that he wanted to do something special for somebody. When he was in Italy he became very close friends with a woman by the name of Julia Medici and she was from the Medici family. She cared for Jacomo and by the time he left for the United States she had passed away. But because they were such good friends I'm not sure exactly the nature of their friendship but he wanted to do something special for her and so he had this dream about doing something. He wasn't sure what it was but nevertheless that's what he wanted to do and when he came to the United States traveled up to Mississippi to Lake Julia he thought because this was the farthest point north of Mississippi he says I'm going to name this after my friend in Italy Lake Julia. I don't think at the time that he knew that this was the continental divide but he was intrigued by the fact that the waters flowed in both directions at the time. South of Lake Julia is a little lake called Summit Lake and then south of Summit Lake is Little Turtle Lake and at one time the waters from Lake Julia there was a stream or creek or river that flowed into those two lakes which is no longer there now it was blocked by roads and so on but the river going north into eventually Red Lake and then also into the Hudson Bay believe it or not is still there. Jacomo knew there was a western source of the Mississippi as well and this is one of the mistakes that he made along the way was that he knew there was a western source of the Mississippi because the Native Americans had told him that but he didn't take time to go there had he take time to go to the Mississippi and discover the western most source well he would have been given credit to the school craft and given credit today and that was in 1932 when school craft discovered the western most source but he was just interested and I think and leaving the mosquitoes and the forest behind and just wanted to get back to civilization at Fort Snelling and so he did not go. Well, Beltrami never really got the recognition that he should have received as I say in my book here it's the Minnesota's Forgotten Hero he really is a forgotten hero in Minnesota even though that this county was named after him Beltrami County people don't really recognize the hardship that he endured during those weeks in the 1820s when he traveled through Minnesota on his own he again had a lot of encounters with Native Americans and with other people having to navigate this canoe up the rivers and through Red Lake and back up here to Lake Julia and it was really a struggle for him to do that and the fact that he at the time in 1823 when he declared that this was the farthest point north of Mississippi it could have been when the people living around Lake Julia today believed that it still is we believe that there's seepage going under Lake Julia Drive which is south of Lake Julia that flows into this little summit lake and eventually into Little Turtle Lake and then on down eventually into Cass Lake and down to the Mississippi so he was a forgotten hero that I think should be recognized more and I've always hoped that maybe sometime in the future that maybe there could be even a statue of Beltrami someplace in Bemidji so here we are on top of Buena Vista Buena Vista was a good name for this location because in Spanish it means good view so in 1823 when Jacomo Beltrami came up on top of this hill he looked over and saw Lake Julia and he thought boy this is a pretty good view and he was right it's a magnificent view well Beltrami had just spent three or four weeks in the wilderness and this was his mission to find the source, the northernmost source of the Mississippi and again he named it after his friend in Italy Julia he named this lake Julia where the waters flow north to the Hudson Bay and the waters flow south to the Gulf of Mexico and he looked at this lake and he said you know this is such a beautiful lake and he thought it was and it is kind of a heart shaped lake and if you read it in his diaries he finds it as a heart shaped lake where the waters flow to the north and to the south and as Buena Vista says it can't be better probably the best overall view in Beltrami County is right here on top of Buena Vista