answers: Lake Itasca
context: to control the spread of invasive Asian carp, making Minneapolis once again the site of the head of navigation of the river. The Upper Mississippi has a number of natural and artificial lakes, with its widest point being Lake Winnibigoshish, near Grand Rapids, Minnesota, over across. Lake Onalaska, created by Lock and Dam No. 7, near La Crosse, Wisconsin, is more than wide. Lake Pepin, a natural lake formed behind the delta of the Chippewa River of Wisconsin as it enters the Upper Mississippi, is more than wide. By the time the Upper Mississippi reaches Saint Paul, Minnesota, below Lock </s> Mississippi". French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi in the 17th century. Marquette traveled with a Sioux Indian who named it "Ne Tongo" ("Big river" in Sioux language) in 1673. Marquette proposed calling it the "River of the Immaculate Conception". When Louis Jolliet explored the Mississippi Valley in the 17th century, natives guided him to a quicker way to return to French Canada via the Illinois River. When he found the Chicago Portage, he remarked that a canal of "only half a league" (less than 2 miles (3.2 km), 3 km) would join the Mississippi and </s> Lake Itasca, the Mississippi has a length of 2,320 miles (3,730 km). When measured from its longest stream source (most distant source from the sea), Brower's Spring in Montana, the source of the Missouri River, it has a length of 3,710 miles, making it the fourth longest river in the world after the Nile, Amazon, and Yangtze. When measured by the largest stream source (by water volume), the Ohio River, by extension the Allegheny River, would be the source, and the Mississippi would begin in Pennsylvania. The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana, and
question: where does the mississippi river start in minnesota