Up to Fargo With Your Cargo

DESCRIPTION: Jump-rope rhyme. "Up to Fargo with your cargo, Down to Hibbing, stop your fibbing. Up to Duluth, tell the truth, Down the creek to catch some trout, One, two, three, you'd better look out."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1949 (North Star Folk News, according to Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes)
KEYWORDS: jumprope travel fishing | counting
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Abrahams-JumpRopeRhymes, #584, "Up to Fargo with your cargo" (1 text)
NOTES [196 words]: This is a strange little rhyme, clearly situated in Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, but the route is strange. In general, in Minnesota at least, "up" is supposed to be north and "down" is south -- and Hibbing, on Minnesota's iron range, is so far north that all cities of any size, except International Falls, are south of it. You could go up to Hibbing and down to Duluth, but not the reverse. What's more, there really isn't an east/west road to get you from Fargo, North Dakota to Hibbing (or even Duluth). So I suspect this is scrambled, somehow.
I also wonder about the creek in which to catch trout. Minnesota has a lot of creeks (or did, before global warming started drying things up), but the most famous is surely Minnehaha Creek in Hennepin County, which flows into the Mississippi River near Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis. Lake Minnetonka, from which it flows, is well-known as a fishing lake, though I the references I've seen don't list trout as a highlight fish. On the other hand, Minnehaha Creek is nowhere near the northern towns of Fargo, Hibbing, and Duluth. I suspect we could say a lot more about this song if we had more versions -- but we don't. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: AJRR584

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