The St. Croix in Prescott, Wisconsin passes under a highway bridge and a railroad bridge and then flows into the Mississippi. Immediately upriver from Prescott is Lake St. Croix. The lake is formed by Point Douglas, a long, narrow spit of land in Minnesota that forces the river into the narrow channel that passes under the bridges.

"So-this-is-a-River."  "The River," corrected the Rat.  "And you really live by the river?  What a jolly life!"

     - Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows