0:00:35 > 0:00:42The mighty Mississippi River is the theme of this part of my journey and I'll be following it from here
0:00:42 > 0:00:44at its sultry southernmost tip in Louisiana
0:00:44 > 0:00:49to its source in the snowy wastes of Minnesota on the Canadian border.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57Welcome to the Mardi Gras, Planet Earth, come on down to the best free party in the world!
0:00:57 > 0:01:00HE YELLS
0:01:00 > 0:01:05I'm in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana
0:01:05 > 0:01:08and today is Shrove Tuesday, which they call Mardi Gras,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11the French for Fat Tuesday and everyone is celebrating,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14not only the last chance to feast before Lent,
0:01:14 > 0:01:18but also the beginnings of the rebirth of this unique city
0:01:18 > 0:01:21after the catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24You might notice I'm wearing a sling, that's because
0:01:24 > 0:01:28I've broken my arm and ten bolts are holding the bones together.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32I shan't be felling any trees, but I'm hoping it will be healing as we go.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36Welcome aboard Pan Am flight 69.
0:01:36 > 0:01:42If there's a word that makes me shiver with revulsion, it's the word "fun".
0:01:42 > 0:01:47And here, human beings are having fun with the most capital of "f"s imaginable
0:01:47 > 0:01:51but actually, it is quite infectious and the spirit is good.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54One wonders how many of the revellers here
0:01:54 > 0:01:59are actually taking the religious point of view and will tomorrow foreswear meat and celebration.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01Not many, I suspect.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07It's a very extraordinary event.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10It combines so much that one associates with New Orleans,
0:02:10 > 0:02:16a slight hint of the macabre, which obsesses this torrid and steamy place,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19plus a general feeling that there is no tomorrow.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25While Mardi Gras is a resolutely Catholic festival,
0:02:25 > 0:02:29Catholicism, which came first with the Spanish and then the French colonists,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32is not really the defining faith of New Orleans.
0:02:32 > 0:02:38At the core of people's spiritual life here is the mysterious religion known as voodoo.
0:02:41 > 0:02:46Sallie Ann Glassman, a Jewish lady from Kennebunkport, Maine
0:02:46 > 0:02:49seems a rather unlikely voodoo high priestess.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55Voodoo is the backbone of this city that is
0:02:55 > 0:02:57an absolute part of the culture.
0:02:59 > 0:03:05It's in the rhythms you hear, filtering through all of New Orleans music.
0:03:07 > 0:03:13Voodoo recognises that there is a whole invisible realm around us.
0:03:13 > 0:03:20Between God and humanity are myriad intermediary ancestral spirits.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24They have maybe a different prospective on life.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31One of the things that you learn as you become a priest in voodoo is
0:03:31 > 0:03:36how to reach into that invisible realm and pull that potential out.
0:03:50 > 0:03:58In popular imagination, voodoo is more associated than anything else with sticking pins in effigies,
0:03:58 > 0:04:05with zombieism, with curses, with slaughtering cockerels and white chickens
0:04:05 > 0:04:09and blood, it's considered a very dark religion, isn't it?
0:04:09 > 0:04:11Well, it's completely erroneous.
0:04:14 > 0:04:22Voodoo is a mix of African traditions that came over with slavery into the New World.
0:04:22 > 0:04:27It encountered European Catholicism and native American practises and also masonry.
0:04:27 > 0:04:32So voodoo is really a gumbo of all of these different traditions.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48'I'm no more a believer in the power of voodoo than in the Virgin Mary,
0:04:48 > 0:04:54'but my arm is hurting and I recognise a good placebo when I see one.'
0:04:57 > 0:05:02I think that New Orleans, because of the presence of voodoo here,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05has a chance of surviving Katrina.
0:05:05 > 0:05:07- Really? - Because voodoo was a religion
0:05:07 > 0:05:11that allowed people to endure what was truly unendurable,
0:05:11 > 0:05:17the conditions of slavery, and gave them the strength and the resilience
0:05:17 > 0:05:21and the creativity to survive whatever happened to them.
0:05:21 > 0:05:27In 2005, Hurricane Katrina screamed in and destroyed much of New Orleans
0:05:27 > 0:05:33when the levees, these high banks that hold back the Mississippi and the lakes around the city, broke.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36Nowhere felt the immediate and long term effects of the hurricane
0:05:36 > 0:05:39more than the predominantly black lower ninth ward,
0:05:39 > 0:05:43a district of New Orleans that lies below the main canal.
0:05:43 > 0:05:4690% of the houses were destroyed and three years on,
0:05:46 > 0:05:50practically nothing has been done to re-build the community.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54'I meet up with Isaiah, who was on his second tour of duty
0:05:54 > 0:05:58'with the US Marines in Iraq when the storm hit.'
0:05:58 > 0:06:01You know, when I came back home...
0:06:01 > 0:06:04I would have like these flashes in my mind, you know,
0:06:04 > 0:06:07cos I used to walk, I used to roam these streets.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11- My school's right back here.- Yeah. So that's the school there?
0:06:11 > 0:06:16- Yeah, this is Alfred Lawless. - Oh... Good Lord.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19Oh, there it is, senior high school.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24This is how Iraq is.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27- A bunch of torn down buildings.- Yeah.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30Grass, you know, grown sky high.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34- The streets ridiculously undriveable, you know.- Yeah, yeah.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38Desolate, quiet, you know, I feel like I'm on a patrol right now
0:06:38 > 0:06:43and then what made it worse was seeing the National Guard
0:06:43 > 0:06:47- riding around in their Humvees, you know.- Oh, here?- Yeah, here.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50- Yes, they still do.- Right. - They patrol around in Humvees
0:06:50 > 0:06:55and there's just no need for that escalation of force, because number one, nobody's here.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02If this was a middle-class white neighbourhood, I cannot believe it would be in this situation.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04- It would not be in this situation. - No.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08I mean, I love the United States of America, you know.
0:07:08 > 0:07:15I love my country, but you look at the name - the United States of America -
0:07:15 > 0:07:19I mean, here, I hardly see unity, you know.
0:07:25 > 0:07:31I leave the French Quarter cleansed of its revelries, safe on its high ground,
0:07:31 > 0:07:37secure in its history and proud of its un-Americanness, to start my journey northwards,
0:07:37 > 0:07:42up the Mississippi, the river that runs through the heart of this great country.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49The sheer scale of the river is overwhelming.
0:07:49 > 0:07:55It disgorges half a million cubic feet per second and in places is more than a mile wide.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58Old Man River is also a great defining line.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02Americans often identify a place by its being east or west of the Mississippi.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05I'll be travelling more than a thousand miles along its banks,
0:08:05 > 0:08:08then through the mid-western plains to the Great Lakes
0:08:08 > 0:08:11and their big cities of Detroit and Chicago
0:08:11 > 0:08:14until I approach the river's source in Minnesota.
0:08:17 > 0:08:23Well, one thing you can say for certain about the State of Louisiana and that is it's always been
0:08:23 > 0:08:28pretty hard on its criminals and the State Penitentiary of Louisiana
0:08:28 > 0:08:34has a name that has struck fear into the heart of hardened lifers everywhere.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37Angola State Penitentiary it's called.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40It's probably the most notorious jail in America.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46It's a hopeless place, quite literally.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49Just about 90% of the prisoners have no hope of parole.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52They will end their lives in Angola.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57Angola Prison is popularly known as The Farm for good reason.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00Its 5,000 inmates, the majority in for murder,
0:09:00 > 0:09:03are spread out on its 18,000 acres to work the land
0:09:03 > 0:09:06and they're housed in a series of camps.
0:09:06 > 0:09:11Warden Burl Cain, who runs the prison, is a legendary figure in the American penal system.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16We're going to go into my prison here through all these gates.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19- You're not carrying any knives or guns?- No, we're not.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22- OK, I'm going to keep you with me, so...- Yes.
0:09:22 > 0:09:26We're going to be cooled here, but we're gonna not do all the searching.
0:09:26 > 0:09:31There's more human suffering on this land than probably anywhere in America.
0:09:32 > 0:09:39'When he came here 13 years ago, Angola was a cesspit of gangs, drugs and terrible violence.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43PRISONERS SHOUT
0:09:43 > 0:09:49'Today, it's become a model of how a prison can work, one he's proud to show off.'
0:09:49 > 0:09:52We just passed death row back there too. That other place.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55- Is death row down there?- Yep.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58We have a coffin maker that makes coffins.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01We almost bury more people than we release.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05# Well, I'm tired and so weary
0:10:05 > 0:10:09# But I mustn't go alone... #
0:10:09 > 0:10:14Burl Cain's vision for the prisoner's rehabilitation is
0:10:14 > 0:10:16a curious mix of Christian morality,
0:10:16 > 0:10:21good ol' boy paternalism and stern liberalism.
0:10:21 > 0:10:26We've gotta live life here and we've gotta have hope where there's no hope and we found morality and religion.
0:10:26 > 0:10:32We don't care what religion, we just look for morality, immoral people are criminals in life.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36The moral are not criminals. They don't rape, pilfer and steal.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41Immoral is what is the criminals, so if we can train an inmate to be moral, we've rehabilitated them.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56Every inmate here has a job. That gives them meaning and purpose in life.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01You think that a prisoner who murdered somebody
0:11:01 > 0:11:05did this and it's his way to give back and say I'm sorry.
0:11:05 > 0:11:09You know, and I'm asking forgiveness for what I did so horrible.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13- Yes.- This man is not going to be prone to commit the violence he did in the past.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17- And you'd do it for nothing, wouldn't ya?- Yes, sir.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21I'm bragging about you, hear that? LAUGHTER
0:11:21 > 0:11:24- That's a paediatric. - Oh, right.- Uh-huh.- Yeah.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26- That why I build them strong.- Yeah.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29- I test ride them to make sure. - Right. Do you really?
0:11:29 > 0:11:32- If I can fit in that.- Yeah, not that, you'd probably have trouble.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37- I've been Angola now for ten years. - Ten years?- Yeah.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39Do you mind me asking what you did to be here?
0:11:39 > 0:11:43- Yeah, I'm on a drugs charge. - A drugs charge?- Yeah.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46- Yeah. But you're off drugs now, are you?- Yeah.- You're clean?
0:11:46 > 0:11:49- Yeah, I'm clean, clean, sure. - Is it a clean prison here?
0:11:49 > 0:11:52Huh, yeah. Pretty much, you know.
0:12:01 > 0:12:04There's a field line coming to work, see how the line is marching?
0:12:04 > 0:12:09- And they're going out, they have a guard walking in front.- Oh, my, my.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13And we raise everything we eat. We don't open a can.
0:12:13 > 0:12:18- Cos I don't do chain gangs, that's why I have the Correction Officer with the gun.- Yeah.
0:12:18 > 0:12:23And if they run away, we're going to shoot a warning shot and the next shot we're going to shoot to wound.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27You shoot the gun. You know, I don't just, make the noise.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32But if they don't shoot, then the other inmates will all try to climb the fence. So shoot the gun.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38- I have 88 on death row.- 88. - They don't go out to work.- No.
0:12:38 > 0:12:43I would be afraid they would try to run away, to commit suicide by making us shoot them.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53There's repercussions if you aren't good.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57You'll lose some privileges you really don't want to lose.
0:12:57 > 0:13:02'Driving through his mini-state, it may seem security is pretty lax,
0:13:02 > 0:13:05'but Warden Burl soon sets me straight.'
0:13:05 > 0:13:12There's 18,000 acres here. This is as large as Manhattan Island, so it's hard to get away from us.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16You gotta run a long way before you get onto somebody else's land.
0:13:16 > 0:13:20See where the wild hog route right there on the southern levy, on the ridge is wild hogs.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22- You've got wild hogs here? - Wild hogs are dangerous.
0:13:22 > 0:13:28If you go into woods, they know if they run in the wood they gotta go through the rattlesnakes.
0:13:28 > 0:13:33We have the panther and we have the bear and we have the wild hogs.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38- We see alligators here.- Really? - A lot of alligators.- Another thing to stop you escaping.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42Alligators are my guards. They all know they are here, so I have too many guards.
0:13:42 > 0:13:44DOG BARKS
0:13:44 > 0:13:49Alligators like to eat dogs, so when we run a blood hound we don't want them chasing the dog.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52We have the finest bloodhounds in the country. We can find you.
0:13:53 > 0:13:58Shall we set the soundman or maybe the director actually, JP,
0:13:58 > 0:14:00Shall we send him to the woods and get him chased?
0:14:00 > 0:14:04- I'd love to see that.- If he runs, I promise you we'll have him back.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07- He has a strong smell.- We could follow him to England.- I could!
0:14:13 > 0:14:19I escape the seductive if sometimes indecipherable southern drawl of Warden Burl,
0:14:19 > 0:14:23who seems to have stepped out of a Tennessee Williams play and leaving Louisiana,
0:14:23 > 0:14:29drive to the old cotton town of Natchez, the architectural jewel in the State of Mississippi.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38This is the town of Natchez,
0:14:38 > 0:14:42one of the great well-preserved southern towns.
0:14:46 > 0:14:51Filled with antebellum homes, pre-Civil War houses.
0:14:51 > 0:14:56Got rich on cotton and slavery.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07This journey is taking me up the great highway that goes all the way
0:15:07 > 0:15:14more or less alongside the Mississippi from New Orleans to Chicago, Route 61.
0:15:18 > 0:15:25More or less in the middle of it, one finds...this place -
0:15:25 > 0:15:27Clarksdale, Mississippi.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30It styles itself the home of the blues.
0:15:30 > 0:15:35So many of the great blues musicians were born here and around here.
0:15:35 > 0:15:42One of those magical and inexplicable places, rather like, I don't know, Salzburg.
0:15:42 > 0:15:48Why should Mozart and Schubert and Haydn all come from a small town in Austria?
0:15:48 > 0:15:52Why shouldn't perhaps the most influential music form of the 20th century
0:15:52 > 0:15:57come from this frankly rather desolate dirt-poor place, Clarksdale, Mississippi?
0:15:57 > 0:15:59It seems like the middle of nowhere.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05Maybe all it has left to live on is the former glory of its music.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18But there is someone who wants to glory in this past.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22Ground Zero is Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman's club.
0:16:30 > 0:16:36- I thought when I went to school that a delta...- Remember that you're talking to a 70-year-old, I mean..
0:16:36 > 0:16:39- You're the wisest man in the Universe, we all know that.- Oh!
0:16:39 > 0:16:42You played God twice, you've got to be wiser.
0:16:48 > 0:16:55They called it the Delta, because although it is an alluvium plain...
0:16:55 > 0:16:59- Right.- ..the Mississippi River used to flood regularly.
0:16:59 > 0:17:01- This whole area?- This whole area.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05So there is all of this alluvium soil here.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07- It's extraordinarily rich.- Yes.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10So that's why they call it Delta.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19Cotton was king of the Delta for many, many, many, many, many years.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23Of course now, we have machines that could do the work of a thousand men in a day.
0:17:23 > 0:17:28- So you've a huge population out of work?- A huge population out of work, huge.
0:17:31 > 0:17:36I mean, the point for you is that we have to forget, not forget the past, that's nonsense...
0:17:36 > 0:17:41- We can't forget that...- No, what I mean is we no longer talk about... - We transcend it.- Good word.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44We don't talk in terms of black and white, of oppressed and oppressor.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49We have to start thinking about Americans, about State Citizens, everyone...
0:17:49 > 0:17:54- You sound like Barack Obama, you know?- Well, yes.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58- I guess his time may have come, you know.- Was that a subtle segue?
0:18:05 > 0:18:08- Something motivated you to... - Come back?
0:18:08 > 0:18:13- Yes. To come back.- Yeah.- Was it a sense of putting something back into a community?
0:18:13 > 0:18:17No, it wasn't at all, if I'm going to be honest about it.
0:18:17 > 0:18:23Er, it was a realisation of where my peace was in life.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26Every time I came,
0:18:26 > 0:18:30there was a sense that I got of peace.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34- Yeah.- Quietude.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37A little envious of Morgan's quietude,
0:18:37 > 0:18:41I head into the state of Arkansas and a taste of the river
0:18:41 > 0:18:44as I pursue my ambitious goal of visiting every state.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58Essentially, of course, all the water
0:18:58 > 0:19:05of central continental United States drains into this river, doesn't it?
0:19:05 > 0:19:10Everything in between Appalachia and the Rockies
0:19:10 > 0:19:14and all the way up into the Canadian prairies.
0:19:14 > 0:19:21John Ruskey understands the allure of the Mississippi, and runs courses in river craft for urban kids.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25It'll sure humble you.
0:19:25 > 0:19:31I was born in the Rocky Mountains and I've never been anywhere that I've felt the power of God.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34- More than here? - Than here.- Really?
0:19:34 > 0:19:39I've climbed fourteeners, I've been the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up.
0:19:39 > 0:19:40Nowhere else.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44Hmm, it's interesting and it seems so gentle now.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47It's a real Old Man River kind of feel.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50It just keeps rolling along.
0:19:58 > 0:20:04'John is very much in the tradition of Mark Twin's great literary creation, Huckleberry Finn,
0:20:04 > 0:20:07'whose adventures travelling the steamboats
0:20:07 > 0:20:11'encapsulates a particularly American sense of restless freedom.'
0:20:26 > 0:20:30Huck Finn. What is it about Huck Finn that seems to capture
0:20:30 > 0:20:34- the American imagination, almost more than any other book?- Yeah.
0:20:34 > 0:20:40We have such a rootless and restless attitude in this country.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43- We love looking at the horizon, seeing what's beyond.- Yeah.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47There's always something at the end of the rainbow, keep travelling, keep going forward.
0:20:47 > 0:20:53Anyone who goes to the edge of the river is always looking downstream wondering where the river goes.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57Every time I'm away, I'm always thinking about the Mississippi River.
0:20:57 > 0:20:58- Really?- Mm-hm.
0:20:58 > 0:21:04- Although it's a place you move along, Mississippi is your home, is it?- Seems like, yeah, yeah.
0:21:04 > 0:21:10You can go anywhere on the last thousand miles of the river, the lower Mississippi,
0:21:10 > 0:21:15and you feel the same thing, it's these places, big open spaces.
0:21:15 > 0:21:20Here we are and... almost nobody passes us.
0:21:20 > 0:21:26We've been here, out on the river for some hours now, getting here and eating and preparing food.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31- Yeah.- And it's completely peaceful. In some ways, they are frightened of the river.
0:21:31 > 0:21:36People are terrified of the river, yeah. And the closer that you live to the river,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40the people that live just over the levee there are the ones who are most scared of it.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43- But with good reason. - With good reason.
0:21:52 > 0:21:56300 miles further upstream, the city of St Louis, Missouri.
0:21:56 > 0:22:00It's where the Mississippi River meets the Missouri River
0:22:00 > 0:22:03linking over 5,000 miles of river that unite the Rockies,
0:22:03 > 0:22:06the Great Lakes and the Appalachian Mountains.
0:22:08 > 0:22:14Although I've only driven a few hundred miles north, it's suddenly turned very cold.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18I'm driving to an area that was once the transport hub of the country.
0:22:18 > 0:22:24'The long abandoned stock yards were also the home for many, many years of my guide William.'
0:22:24 > 0:22:30One of the most unimaginable things about being homeless here is just simply the temperature.
0:22:30 > 0:22:35- Today, we're minus five or something and it gets a lot colder than that, doesn't it?- Well, yeah, you know.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38When I was staying in abandoned buildings,
0:22:38 > 0:22:42the inside temperatures were a lot colder than the outside temperature.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46It's about 20 degrees colder inside.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50- How did you keep warm?- Blankets and a whole lot of clothes.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53How many years were you homeless for, William?
0:22:53 > 0:22:56- 25.- 25 years!
0:22:56 > 0:22:57Practically half of my life.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11In this building, particularly, you had about,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14oh, I guess about 25 people living here.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18And you had different agencies that would come through here
0:23:18 > 0:23:24- and bring you food, bring you the oil for the kerosene heaters.- Right.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27You know, you didn't really want for nothing.
0:23:27 > 0:23:29- That's why you almost didn't want to leave.- Yeah.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34It was just like your own apartment, but you just didn't wanna leave. THEY LAUGH
0:23:39 > 0:23:41The River Front Hilton.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44The River Front Hilton. That's what we called it.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47There was so many people living here, it was just like a hotel.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58- A fire, how wonderful.- Yep.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00Hi, hello.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04- Hello.- Hey. How y'all doing today? - I'm Stephen.
0:24:04 > 0:24:05- Harry.- Harry. How do you do?
0:24:05 > 0:24:08- How long have you been together? - Three years.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11- Wow. And is this where you...? - Three years too long.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13LAUGHTER
0:24:13 > 0:24:15- You've got a house. - You might say it's a house.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19- We've got two bedrooms.- Yeah. - This is where you live at.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22This is where you are going to make your home at.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25- It must so hard. - No, it's not that bad.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29- No?- It's not too bad.- I was thinking I couldn't survive a day here.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32- Do you remember the day you hit that dude in his mouth?- Yep.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35For calling her a homeless crackhead whore.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39I bounced him off the cobblestones and into a dumpster and off my knee
0:24:39 > 0:24:43and I said that ain't gonna happen. You don't disrespect anybody.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46- That's like my little sister.- Yeah. - He's like my brother-in-law.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49We chose to live like this!
0:24:50 > 0:24:54So you don't share the American dream if the American dream means
0:24:54 > 0:24:57getting your own house and yard and your own mortgage
0:24:57 > 0:25:01- and you know, seven TVs and... - Been there and done that.
0:25:01 > 0:25:07Panhandlers, hobos and bums are very much part of American history and folklore.
0:25:07 > 0:25:13That sense of freedom that the sheer vastness of the country can evoke perhaps makes the American dream
0:25:13 > 0:25:18less about 2.4 children and a house in the burbs than the lure of the open road.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32We're in Iowa, the great mid-western state which
0:25:32 > 0:25:37is the birthplace of John Wayne and James Tiberius Kirk,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41Captain of the United States ship Enterprise.
0:25:41 > 0:25:47But I've come here to go to a remarkable city which has its own currency
0:25:47 > 0:25:50and uses as its constitution, apparently,
0:25:50 > 0:25:55the Constitution of the Universe in order to guarantee perfect order.
0:25:55 > 0:25:57Intriguing, isn't it?
0:26:00 > 0:26:04It's certainly pretty orderly so far.
0:26:04 > 0:26:10A lot of harmony about, I notice, and very little negative energy which is highly pleasing
0:26:10 > 0:26:14because I hate negative energy, it sets me in a roar. I can't bear it.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17I'm very positive at the moment.
0:26:19 > 0:26:26I've got this feeling... holistic...natural energy.
0:26:26 > 0:26:29It's the only word I can use.
0:26:31 > 0:26:37This place is turning me into a babbling merchant of drivel.
0:26:44 > 0:26:50Maharishi Vedic City is the world centre for transcendental meditation,
0:26:50 > 0:26:54an ancient form of yoga interpreted by the modern Maharishi, who taught The Beatles.
0:27:05 > 0:27:10By activating alpha brainwaves, inner harmony is promoted.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13The practitioners believe that TM, as it's often called,
0:27:13 > 0:27:19is the answer to both one's personal and all the world's problems. Golly.
0:27:19 > 0:27:24Hard to tell what's going on behind closed eyes.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28Perhaps illumination will be found with Dr Fred Travis,
0:27:28 > 0:27:30who's head of the Research Institute here
0:27:30 > 0:27:35at the so-called capital of the global country of world peace.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41My alpha waves are to be tested. As well as my credulity.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54There's my brain. Hey, look at them. Oh, my Lord.
0:27:54 > 0:27:59Oh, dear me. There's certainly something very unpleasant. I'll have to calm down.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03It just turns into a horrible, horrible mess, doesn't it?
0:28:03 > 0:28:05I do apologise. All right.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09So this is you doing the task.
0:28:09 > 0:28:14- So what we can see here is there's a little bit more alpha activity.- There certainly is.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18Big high peak. Alpha is more the relaxed wakefulness.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21This seems such a sane and an excellent project
0:28:21 > 0:28:24for people in search of enlightenment and happiness,
0:28:24 > 0:28:29no-ones going to quibble that that's an important and valid quest.
0:28:29 > 0:28:35And then, we bang into this idea of yogic flying and you think, "Oh, hello, what's going on here?"
0:28:35 > 0:28:38People hopping about in bedrooms.
0:28:38 > 0:28:42Looking as if they might be rising off the ground but not really.
0:28:42 > 0:28:47Claims which may attract some people, but will turn others like me completely off.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50The reason for yogic flying isn't to hop around.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54It's not the way to go to the grocery store, you know?
0:28:54 > 0:28:59- Yes.- If you go to a very fundamental level of the mind, you can ultimately move the body.
0:28:59 > 0:29:03So if you look at what's happening in people's brains during yogic flying,
0:29:03 > 0:29:06just before they take off, there is a huge change.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09Do you know what motivated the Maharishi to come to Iowa?
0:29:11 > 0:29:13Er, the college was for sale.
0:29:13 > 0:29:19I'm not sure what I think of this, but I do know that Americans seem to be more open than most
0:29:19 > 0:29:24to anything that might bring about self-improvement and there is something wonderful
0:29:24 > 0:29:30about the incongruity of yogic flying over the wintry Iowan cornfields.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34But I have no time and even less inclination to try it out.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42To the North East lies Chicago, but first, I must make a detour
0:29:42 > 0:29:45through Indiana and Ohio, to Michigan.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49What to do in Indiana?
0:29:49 > 0:29:51Well, I've always wanted to ride
0:29:51 > 0:29:55in one of these classic big red fire trucks, and in Elkhart, Indiana,
0:29:55 > 0:30:00I fulfil that dream, riding up front with fire chief Mike Compton.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04I'm going to get a taste of what the choking reality is.
0:30:04 > 0:30:10It's a hard job to get these days. We had 240 applicants for eight jobs.
0:30:10 > 0:30:13I know when I got hired I got a three-day training in the basics.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17I was told, "Follow that guy with the grey hair, keep your mouth shut and do as you're told."
0:30:22 > 0:30:28- I spoke to a fireman once and he said, "Oh, yeah, we all love a good blaze."- And we do.
0:30:28 > 0:30:32- Yeah.- It's kinda funny that if you take an engineer,
0:30:32 > 0:30:36he wants to prevent a building from collapsing.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41You take a fireman, he doesn't always want to prevent a fire, he wants to have a fire.
0:30:45 > 0:30:51And that's why you need to weed out the psychologically weird ones who are just a bit too fond of a fire.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04I can't see anything.
0:31:07 > 0:31:12To be a fireman in the States is to be an authentic American hero,
0:31:12 > 0:31:15untainted by corruption, politics and ambition.
0:31:15 > 0:31:21After 9/ll, the job became even more glorified and even more desirable.
0:31:27 > 0:31:29Oh, my,
0:31:29 > 0:31:31oh, my, that's awful.
0:31:31 > 0:31:33That's just hell.
0:31:33 > 0:31:37There's nothing to describe it. You can't see, you can't orientate yourself in any direction.
0:31:37 > 0:31:42I do not understand how anybody would voluntarily go into a building like that because
0:31:42 > 0:31:47now that I've experienced it, I never want to go anywhere near anything like it again.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52Oh, the stench.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03The nearly rolling farmland of Ohio.
0:32:03 > 0:32:08A lot of states have had songs written about them, Georgia, Texas, California.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11They're usually rather romantic and optimistic.
0:32:11 > 0:32:13There's a great song written about Ohio.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16It's very melancholy and it memorialises...
0:32:18 > 0:32:23a sort of turning point in American history, really, when the '60s dream went bad.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25Some students at a University in this state,
0:32:25 > 0:32:30the town of Kent, part of the State University known as Kent State,
0:32:30 > 0:32:34were demonstrating against the Vietnam War, the invasion of Cambodia,
0:32:34 > 0:32:41and in came the National Guard, a kind of soldiery of the American Army,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44and they shot 13 of them.
0:32:44 > 0:32:46Nine were very seriously injured, four killed.
0:32:46 > 0:32:51Young students demonstrating on a campus in a university,
0:32:51 > 0:32:55shot dead by soldiers of their own country,
0:32:55 > 0:32:59and it happened in this innocent-looking farm state.
0:33:02 > 0:33:07The great Neil Young wrote a wonderful song about it.
0:33:10 > 0:33:15# Gotta get down to it Soldiers are cutting us down
0:33:15 > 0:33:20# Should have been done long ago
0:33:20 > 0:33:27# What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground
0:33:27 > 0:33:31# How can you run when you know? #
0:33:53 > 0:33:58We've seen over half the States of America so far.
0:34:03 > 0:34:08We've seen mountains and hills and rivers and beautiful cities.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12We're here in Detroit, Michigan,
0:34:12 > 0:34:16a motor town, Motown, where evidence is all around us
0:34:16 > 0:34:18of the industry that changed the world.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26Water from the Great Lakes, iron ore from the plains,
0:34:26 > 0:34:31coal from the Appalachians and workers from the south and east made Detroit
0:34:31 > 0:34:33the industrial furnace of America.
0:34:42 > 0:34:47Henry Ford, who started his business here in Dearborn, on the outskirts of Detroit,
0:34:47 > 0:34:52could be said to have invented modern America and defined millions of people's lives.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56His famous dictum that history is more or less bunk is somewhat at odds with the village
0:34:56 > 0:34:59he created next to his factory,
0:34:59 > 0:35:03a village full of history pillaged from every corner of the planet.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06But people are ever-complicated and contradictory,
0:35:06 > 0:35:09which the best machines are not.
0:35:09 > 0:35:12The Model T he built here on the first ever mass-production line
0:35:12 > 0:35:16is still considered the most successful car ever made.
0:35:16 > 0:35:21Simple, effective, elegant, cheap enough to be bought by Ford's own workers -
0:35:21 > 0:35:24the Tin Lizzie quite simply transformed the world.
0:35:26 > 0:35:31But Ford was not alone in the car business here, and Detroit is home
0:35:31 > 0:35:36to the largest car company of all, and Ford's bitterest rival -
0:35:36 > 0:35:41General Motors, makers of the Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Cadillac brands.
0:35:44 > 0:35:49In the stylish tech centre, built by that modernist master Aero Saarinen,
0:35:49 > 0:35:53I meet up with John Manoogian, designer for the latest incarnation of the Cadillac.
0:35:59 > 0:36:05When I first saw the 1963 Corvette Stingray, I rode my bicycle
0:36:05 > 0:36:10into town that day to the Chevrolet dealer and they had a silver Stingray
0:36:10 > 0:36:12sitting right in the showroom.
0:36:12 > 0:36:15I said, "That's it. I have to be where they designed that car."
0:36:15 > 0:36:18- You really wanted this job, didn't you?- I could taste it.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25My father worked for 50 years at the Ford Motor Company.
0:36:25 > 0:36:28When it came time for me to quit my job at Ford and come
0:36:28 > 0:36:31to General Motors, he was absolutely flabbergasted.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34He said, "Why would you ever want to do that?"
0:36:34 > 0:36:38So it's a bit like someone from a very strict Catholic family bringing home a Protestant girl.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41Actually in some ways, it was probably worse than that.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46Now, you've designed a Cadillac...?
0:36:46 > 0:36:49- Yes.- Did you ever dream that... - My life is complete.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57If you were to gaze into your crystal ball,
0:36:57 > 0:37:02what would you see motoring being like in another 20 years, say?
0:37:02 > 0:37:08I would expect to see smaller cars, probably different power plants.
0:37:08 > 0:37:13This country being the way it is, laid out as big as it is,
0:37:13 > 0:37:18there's going to be a large segment of the population that says, "I have to have a car."
0:37:21 > 0:37:25America needs cars - for the foreseeable future, there's no alternative.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29Hell, I'm using one because it's the only way to see the country,
0:37:29 > 0:37:35save those moments when I can get a bird's eye view. And what a view.
0:37:35 > 0:37:39Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City, second city to New York.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41A hard-working, wealthy metropolis,
0:37:41 > 0:37:46built on the shores of Lake Michigan and a magnificent hymn to modernism.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Chicago is also home to its very own style of the blues.
0:38:11 > 0:38:13And Buddy Guy is their God.
0:38:13 > 0:38:20# I'm just tryin' to ease... My weary mind... #
0:38:20 > 0:38:24From Jimi Hendrix to the Stones, to Eric Clapton, they've all worshipped at the frets of his guitar.
0:38:26 > 0:38:28# If you see me get kind of drunk
0:38:33 > 0:38:38# Plee-ea-ase don't pay me no mind... #
0:38:43 > 0:38:46But the blues are a dying art form.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49Buddy Guy takes me down memory lane,
0:38:49 > 0:38:53to the once-thriving working-class south side of the city.
0:38:53 > 0:39:00This is the place, the most famous blues club on the south side of Chicago.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03At this vacant lot here, another one called
0:39:03 > 0:39:07The Juke Box Lounge, that's where I stole my first guitar from, right here.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10- Really?- Yeah.- Good God, and it's now just wasteland?- Just wasteland.
0:39:10 > 0:39:11With ice on it.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16So I used to live around the corner.
0:39:16 > 0:39:22I'd leave home to go to Pepper's Lounge but I never made it because every time I would pass a joint
0:39:22 > 0:39:26like that I could hear the music playing and I said, "Wow, this sounds so good,
0:39:26 > 0:39:28"I've got to go see who this is."
0:39:28 > 0:39:30When I walk up on this side of the street, the same thing.
0:39:30 > 0:39:34That side, this side. They had blues clubs, I mean everywhere.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42I don't normally come down this way no more cos I hate that flashback.
0:39:42 > 0:39:44Yeah, it upsets you?
0:39:44 > 0:39:49Oh, yeah, you know, sometimes you feel like crying because what happened?
0:39:49 > 0:39:53Because people were having so much fun, I mean 24/7.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59It saddens me because those days are never coming back.
0:40:02 > 0:40:06Some people laugh at the blues, say it's always about being miserable.
0:40:06 > 0:40:08What do you think they're about?
0:40:08 > 0:40:11When you hear BB King singing, "I've got a sweet little angel,
0:40:11 > 0:40:15"I love the way she spreads her wings", that is not miserable.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21Entertainment has always been a big part of this city
0:40:21 > 0:40:23and while the blues clubs may have passed away,
0:40:23 > 0:40:28one institution that has gone from strength to strength, is comedy theatre Second City.
0:40:30 > 0:40:34Comedy improvisation could be said to have come of age at this institution.
0:40:34 > 0:40:38For half a century some of the greatest and most famous comedians in the world
0:40:38 > 0:40:41have started their careers here.
0:40:41 > 0:40:42Er...
0:40:45 > 0:40:47Your girlfriend's in there right now.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50- Oh, great, I haven't seen her in a while.- Whoa, whoa.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52Erm, er... How can I tell this?
0:40:54 > 0:40:57She's, er...
0:40:57 > 0:40:59Er, lost her clothes.
0:40:59 > 0:41:01Woah.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04- Maybe I should wait out here for five minutes.- Whoa.
0:41:04 > 0:41:05All right two minutes.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14'Oh, dear. What I was most dreading. My turn.'
0:41:14 > 0:41:17Will you be offended if I said that you seem to be
0:41:17 > 0:41:20in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection?
0:41:21 > 0:41:27Oh, that makes my boy and girl parts go a little twangy.
0:41:27 > 0:41:29You are radiantly lovely.
0:41:29 > 0:41:31You do know that, don't you?
0:41:33 > 0:41:39What is the sexiest word that comes to you brain right now when you look into my eyes?
0:41:39 > 0:41:41Erm, strabismus.
0:41:43 > 0:41:48'The Wiener Circle is an institution amongst Chicago's acting fraternity.
0:41:48 > 0:41:53'Having recovered from the trauma of last night, I am to be initiated.'
0:41:53 > 0:41:56Yeah, I'll have a big wiener.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59- Yes.- Three big wieners.
0:41:59 > 0:42:05No, definitely no hot pepper, I'm completely homosexual when it comes to hot peppers.
0:42:05 > 0:42:07Authentic Chicago experience.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11Improvise your way out of that.
0:42:11 > 0:42:13Ah.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16Mmm.
0:42:17 > 0:42:19It is...
0:42:19 > 0:42:21surprisingly delicious.
0:42:22 > 0:42:24Now listen. Second City.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27The end of the rainbow for you if you had comedy ambitions?
0:42:27 > 0:42:31- The first time I saw the show I wanted to on the stage so bad. - Really?- Yeah.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35You get hired and you go inside and they show you there's a tape closet
0:42:35 > 0:42:40- with the tapes of all the shows that they've ever done and the scripts from all those shows.- It's amazing.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44And they open it up and you look at the cast list and you're looking at
0:42:44 > 0:42:48Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner in one show, you know.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51Dan Castellaneta, used to work here, Homer Simpson.
0:42:51 > 0:42:53- Homer Simpson? - The legendary Homer Simpson.
0:42:53 > 0:42:59If from the vantage point of my elderly position of a 50-year-old,
0:42:59 > 0:43:01if I can offer any advice it is never too late.
0:43:01 > 0:43:07- The idea that the door closes and roped off, I'm already 30, nothing's happened.- Right.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11It's complete nonsense. Actually, almost the reverse is true.
0:43:11 > 0:43:13- Yeah, yeah. - A lot of stars, George Clooney,
0:43:13 > 0:43:17that guy Hugh, the one in House, whatever his name is.
0:43:17 > 0:43:19Yeah. He's terrible, right?
0:43:19 > 0:43:22He had to wait until his late forties before...
0:43:22 > 0:43:24Why do you think it grew up here in Chicago?
0:43:24 > 0:43:26Is there something about this place?
0:43:26 > 0:43:29The city just happened to be hungry for it.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32It's called the Windy City because in the 19th century
0:43:32 > 0:43:36they said that the politicians in Chicago were full of hot air.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39- Oh, it's windy in that sense? - Yeah.- The windy person is...
0:43:39 > 0:43:43- Like blowhards.- Windbags, yeah. Blowhards as you call them. Exactly.
0:43:43 > 0:43:46They also had the reputation of being the second city.
0:43:46 > 0:43:48They were second to New York, all the time.
0:43:48 > 0:43:50It's always had that chip on its shoulder
0:43:50 > 0:43:54but since it's such a working class town it doesn't mind having a chip.
0:43:54 > 0:43:56It's always working, it never rests.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05There's yet another sector of the entertainment industry in Chicago
0:44:05 > 0:44:08but in a different, how shall I put it, mould.
0:44:24 > 0:44:26Oh, my Lord!
0:44:28 > 0:44:29That's incredible.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32- It's real copper. - Real copper. It's so beautiful.
0:44:32 > 0:44:33OK?
0:44:33 > 0:44:34Oh, here's the big one.
0:44:34 > 0:44:38- The big one.- Gold.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40- Oh.- OK?- Yeah.
0:44:43 > 0:44:44Oh!
0:44:44 > 0:44:46Gold, Mr Bond.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49I love its softness, I love its beauty,
0:44:49 > 0:44:52I love its colour, but most of all I love its value.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58It's the real thing, it's an Oscar.
0:45:19 > 0:45:23Well, I never did get my Oscar but I got this instead.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26One of the greatest sights on the planet.
0:45:30 > 0:45:35The Sears Tower for a long time could proudly call itself the tallest building in the world,
0:45:35 > 0:45:40but the economic shifts of the last decades have moved that dubious accolade to the Far East
0:45:40 > 0:45:43but who's counting when you have this?
0:46:05 > 0:46:08Leaving Illinois on my way to Minnesota,
0:46:08 > 0:46:11I head into State number 30, Wisconsin.
0:46:11 > 0:46:17So, here we are in Wisconsin.
0:46:17 > 0:46:19I think I ought to tell you,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22which you may not be able to tell yourselves,
0:46:22 > 0:46:24is that it really is very cold.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27It's exceptionally cold.
0:46:27 > 0:46:31A few hours ago it was -25 degrees Centigrade,
0:46:31 > 0:46:36which is jolly cold in anybody's currency and I have proof of it
0:46:36 > 0:46:38because I have a bottle of water which I had last night,
0:46:38 > 0:46:44left in the cab and as you may be able to see, that is one solid,
0:46:47 > 0:46:50completely frozen bottle of water.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54It's very pretty though.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58It's very Scandinavian around here.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02Svenson Motors and things.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04Uff da Mart,
0:47:04 > 0:47:07Sorenson's Auto Sales.
0:47:13 > 0:47:18For most Americans Wisconsin means cheese,
0:47:18 > 0:47:22most of it disgustingly bland and fit only for melting over burgers.
0:47:22 > 0:47:23But Brenda Jensen is a rarity.
0:47:23 > 0:47:26She makes organic ewe's milk cheese.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28She has 150 sheep herself,
0:47:28 > 0:47:32but she still needs more milk as her successful business expands.
0:47:35 > 0:47:41Brenda's desire for unadulterated milk leads her to equally unadulterated Amish neighbours.
0:47:43 > 0:47:47The Amish are a Christian Sect who don't believe in mechanical devices,
0:47:47 > 0:47:50so don't use cars, tractors, phones or shavers.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53They also don't like being filmed but take it from me,
0:47:53 > 0:47:57they're very friendly, sweet and not in the least solemn or disapproving.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05Come on girls, come on, come on.
0:48:05 > 0:48:07Yeah.
0:48:07 > 0:48:08Here they go.
0:48:09 > 0:48:11- They're very keen to be milked, aren't they?- Oh, yes.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18- We've got all these udders presenting to us.- We do. Yes, yes.
0:48:18 > 0:48:20OK darling, I'm going to have a go.
0:48:20 > 0:48:22Excuse me. Oh, Lord.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24Hang on.
0:48:25 > 0:48:26You've got...
0:48:26 > 0:48:27Come on, look. Ow.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30Oops, that's one.
0:48:30 > 0:48:32Where's the other one? Oh. Get up.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35- Bloody hell. There it goes. - Push it right up.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38There it goes. There's the milk.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41Oh my, and that flows up into one of these pipes.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45They certainly like to present their lady parts, don't they?
0:48:45 > 0:48:49- They do.- There's no mistaking. Obviously attractive to a ram.
0:48:51 > 0:48:54So many things going on there.
0:48:54 > 0:48:59Folds and puckers and oozings.
0:49:00 > 0:49:04- Oh, what's going on?- They've recently had babies, you know.
0:49:04 > 0:49:08So they're a little stretched at the moment, darlings, aren't you?
0:49:10 > 0:49:11A little slack.
0:49:14 > 0:49:15Take your finger.
0:49:15 > 0:49:17- Oh, my goodness.- And...- Ooh.
0:49:17 > 0:49:19Yeah, just take a break like that.
0:49:19 > 0:49:22- Like a milk jelly. - You can tell this is ready.
0:49:22 > 0:49:29Wisconsin. Is it thought of as very much a capital of good dairy farming?
0:49:29 > 0:49:32Oh, yes, very much so. Wisconsin is cheese.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36I have to say, without wishing to be offensive about America,
0:49:36 > 0:49:39but one of the most notable things about America
0:49:39 > 0:49:42is that cheese, generally, is appalling.
0:49:42 > 0:49:46- Mmm.- It's shocking. You go to even quite a good restaurant and...
0:49:46 > 0:49:48- Oh, sure.- They don't serve it,
0:49:48 > 0:49:52and the cheese they melt and put on things is just...
0:49:52 > 0:49:56- It's orange and some of it comes out of a can.- Yeah.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59- And spray-on cheese, it exists, doesn't it?- Yeah.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02So is this like a new movement in America?
0:50:02 > 0:50:04It is, it really is.
0:50:04 > 0:50:06Artisanal farmstead, natural.
0:50:06 > 0:50:08Artisanal, that's a good word.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11It is, and very handcrafted.
0:50:13 > 0:50:16By mid-Western standards, my next destination,
0:50:16 > 0:50:20the twin city conurbation of Minneapolis St Paul,
0:50:20 > 0:50:24is bang next door, being only a couple of hours drive away.
0:50:24 > 0:50:29The Mississippi. There she is again look, almost frozen solid.
0:50:29 > 0:50:34We've hardly left her for 2,500 miles since we met at the mouth
0:50:34 > 0:50:38in Louisiana and now ten states later,
0:50:38 > 0:50:42we've traced her almost to her source further upstate in Minnesota.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45It's even colder up here than it was in Wisconsin,
0:50:45 > 0:50:48so there's barely a soul on the streets.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51In fact, almost no-one ever braves the air in wintertime
0:50:51 > 0:50:57and to get from building to building they have covered catwalks between the buildings called skyways.
0:50:57 > 0:51:00It's those practical Scandiwegians again.
0:51:00 > 0:51:02PEOPLE SPEAK ASIAN LANGUAGE
0:51:02 > 0:51:05But hark, that's not Swedish I hear,
0:51:07 > 0:51:09it's Hmong,
0:51:09 > 0:51:14and how odd to be among the Hmong so far from their ancestral homelands,
0:51:14 > 0:51:17which were in the opium-growing hills of Laos and Vietnam.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21These are the latest and probably most incongruous
0:51:21 > 0:51:23in a long line of immigrants to Minnesota.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27The Hmong fought alongside America during the Vietnam War
0:51:27 > 0:51:32and after that war was lost, most of the Hmong refugees who fled to the US
0:51:32 > 0:51:34were re-settled here in Minneapolis.
0:51:34 > 0:51:38Today they number some 40,000 and are the largest Hmong community
0:51:38 > 0:51:43outside South East Asia with their own State Senator, Mrs Mee Moua.
0:51:43 > 0:51:48We came from a village life where people are out and about
0:51:48 > 0:51:53and teeming and people walking the streets and you're always bumping into people.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56To come into this environment, in the middle of January,
0:51:56 > 0:52:00where you don't see human beings for months and months and months,
0:52:00 > 0:52:02and the only people you see are your family.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05You look outside and don't see anybody. It's like a ghost town.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08Soon after the Hmong were moved here,
0:52:08 > 0:52:12there was an unusually high number of deaths among their menfolk.
0:52:12 > 0:52:14Senator Mee explains.
0:52:14 > 0:52:19Many, many Hmong men would go to sleep and just die in their sleep.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23They just switched themselves off, almost? They stopped wanting to live?
0:52:23 > 0:52:27- It's a kind of suicide.- Yeah, the light just went out
0:52:27 > 0:52:33and the irony is that I have talked to men who have come back.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39They would dream that they had wings
0:52:39 > 0:52:43and that they were flying, you know, across the oceans.
0:52:45 > 0:52:49And they would see the fields and the mountains of Laos.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53You know, to go back to the land of their ancestors.
0:52:56 > 0:52:59So these people who woke up,
0:52:59 > 0:53:05woke up because their wives heard them kind of struggling,
0:53:05 > 0:53:08otherwise he was already in Laos.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14We started to have Hmong grocery stores,
0:53:14 > 0:53:19we had Hmong loan offices and bankers at the local banks.
0:53:19 > 0:53:24We had enough people who were versatile in English to be at the law offices and at hospitals.
0:53:24 > 0:53:29That has really helped to minimise their sense of helplessness.
0:53:29 > 0:53:31So we could have a sense of community.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35Leaving the now happier Hmong to their adopted homeland,
0:53:35 > 0:53:37I join up with Tim Lesmeister
0:53:37 > 0:53:40for a spot of more traditional Minnesotan activity.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51Wow. That was fun.
0:53:53 > 0:53:55That was a good ride.
0:53:55 > 0:53:58Whoa.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00Quite icy on the ice!
0:54:00 > 0:54:02Right here where we're standing
0:54:02 > 0:54:06there's literally thousands of fish below us, ready to be caught.
0:54:16 > 0:54:17Wahey!
0:54:17 > 0:54:20How thick is that sheet of ice, do you think?
0:54:20 > 0:54:24- It's 24 or 26 inches right in there. - Over two foot.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27I usually bring nothing but bad luck to these kinds of enterprise,
0:54:27 > 0:54:29but let's see if we can catch something.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34You're putting a television camera down there?
0:54:34 > 0:54:36I'm putting a camera down here, yes.
0:54:36 > 0:54:39And we'll set it up so we can actually watch our lure,
0:54:39 > 0:54:42and we'll watch the fish actually swim up.
0:54:45 > 0:54:47There's two of them now.
0:54:47 > 0:54:48Oh, it's a nice fish too.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51OK, come on. OK, here he comes, here he comes.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54I think he's going to take it. He's really on top of this one.
0:54:56 > 0:54:58- Oh, he swam away.- Oh, no.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01I'm not ringing the dinner bell for them yet.
0:55:01 > 0:55:06So what made Tim and his ancestors settle in this icy land?
0:55:06 > 0:55:12The Scandinavians actually came over here looking for a new life,
0:55:12 > 0:55:18but when they got to Minnesota, they said, "This is just like home, let's stay here."
0:55:18 > 0:55:21And the people in Minnesota tend to be a little quirky.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26I suppose you have to be if you're going to be crazy enough to live this far north.
0:55:27 > 0:55:29Come on, fishy.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31These fish are really negative.
0:55:31 > 0:55:36They're toying with us, they know that we want one so bad. If we didn't want a fish...
0:55:36 > 0:55:39- Yeah, let's not want one. - If we didn't want a fish, we would catch a fish.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43Actually it would be rather a bore if they bit.
0:55:43 > 0:55:45I'd have to turn the reel and bring them up
0:55:45 > 0:55:49so I'd much rather you just go away please, bother someone else.
0:55:49 > 0:55:52- That's right.- See how this reverse psychology works.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55Ooh, big bass, big bass.
0:55:55 > 0:55:57- Bass.- Big bass, big bass.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59Ooh, that would be good.
0:55:59 > 0:56:01Big bass. Come on, come on.
0:56:03 > 0:56:05Oh, get in there.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08- Hurray.- It's a sunfish. Hey, that's a nice one.
0:56:08 > 0:56:10- What is he?- That is a sunfish.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13- He's beautiful. - Yeah, he's a beautiful fish.
0:56:13 > 0:56:15Cold. He's ready frozen, virtually.
0:56:15 > 0:56:18- Probably the biggest fish ever caught here, would you say?- No.
0:56:18 > 0:56:19- Come on, yes it is.- No.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22Oops, oh, dear.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26- It's the first fish I've caught since I was about ten years old. - This is?
0:56:28 > 0:56:31I don't want you to think I'm scared of this fish.
0:56:32 > 0:56:35Oh, this is a nice one.
0:56:35 > 0:56:38- This is a serious fish. - That's bending.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40This is really bending the rod.
0:56:40 > 0:56:42Ooh, yeah, it's a biggie.
0:56:44 > 0:56:46He's up to the hole, he's up, he's up.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48Oh, I say!
0:56:48 > 0:56:50Bravo!
0:56:50 > 0:56:53- That's a pike, isn't it? - That is a pike.
0:56:53 > 0:56:56Yeah. He's absolutely beautiful.
0:56:56 > 0:56:58That is a beautiful fish.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02I would go so far as to say that is bigger than the fish I just caught.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05I think it is. I genuinely think that's bigger than my fish.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08I'm guessing it was pretty close, pretty close.
0:57:08 > 0:57:12Actually mine goes from there to there, yours goes...
0:57:12 > 0:57:14Yeah, yours is just bigger, well done.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19- That's a nice big fish, there it goes.- Off she goes. Wonderful.
0:57:19 > 0:57:21I like to see them put back.
0:57:21 > 0:57:23That is really good.
0:57:23 > 0:57:25These are the spoils.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29- Pitting our wits against the mighty sunfish.- This is brilliant.
0:57:31 > 0:57:34It's been quite a journey from the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans,
0:57:34 > 0:57:37where the River Mississippi empties itself
0:57:37 > 0:57:40in warm, steamy, torrid Louisiana,
0:57:40 > 0:57:42right here to fresh, chilly Minnesota,
0:57:42 > 0:57:46which is the state where the Mississippi begins.
0:57:46 > 0:57:49We've followed music and food.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52CRACKING NOISES
0:57:52 > 0:57:55That's...slightly worrying.
0:57:55 > 0:57:58- That's just ice cracking. - Oh, that's all right,
0:57:58 > 0:58:02I thought it was a leaf rustling. If it's only ice cracking... Get out of here!!
0:58:03 > 0:58:05And so we did.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07Next week, I shall be travelling
0:58:07 > 0:58:09from the glaciers of Montana on the Canadian border,
0:58:09 > 0:58:13right down through the High Prairies and Rocky Mountains,
0:58:13 > 0:58:16to the arid deserts of Texas on the border with Mexico.
0:58:37 > 0:58:39Subtitles by Red Bee Media
0:58:39 > 0:58:41E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk