What is the Driftless Area?

It is a region in the Midwest (Northeast Iowa, Southeast Minnesota, Southwest Wisconsin and a wee bit of Northwest Illinois) that was skipped by the glaciers in the last ice age, leaving the area “lacking glacial drift”, i.e., driftless. The Area is a natural, beautiful, sculpted landscape region that is full of monadnocks (huge masses of rock rising up out of the middle of a plateau), rolling hillsides that extend into deeply carved river valleys that cut into limestone bedrock, sinkholes, palisades, bluffs, and caves. Even if you haven’t heard of the Driftless Area, it is likely you have visited it already if you’ve been to Galena, IL, or the Wisconsin Dells.

In this 90-minute class we will identify the oldest river in the world and discover the natural beauty of the region where only certain flowers and plants are found in the world.

This program will be presented in-person at the library by Brad Keyes, amateur historian.