Red River of the North
| Red River of the North Rivière Rouge |
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|---|---|
 The Red River drainage basin, with the Red River highlighted |
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| Origin | confluence of the Bois de Sioux River and Otter Tail River |
| Mouth | Lake Winnipeg |
| Basin countries | United States (Minnesota-North Dakota Border) Canada (Manitoba) |
| Length | 550 mi (885 km) |
| Basin area | 287,500 square kilometers (111,004 sq mi)[1] |
The Red River (French: Rivière rouge or AmE: Red River of the North) is a North American river. Originating at the confluence of the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail rivers in the United States, it flows northward through the Red River Valley and forms the border between the U.S. states of Minnesota and North Dakota before continuing into Manitoba, Canada. It empties into Lake Winnipeg, whose waters join the Nelson River and ultimately flow into the Hudson Bay, which is part of the Arctic Ocean.
The Red River flows through several urban areas along its path including Fargo-Moorhead and Greater Grand Forks in the United States and Winnipeg in Canada. The Red is about 885 kilometres (550 miles) long,[2] of which about 635 kilometres (395 miles) are in the United States and about 255 kilometres (155 miles) are in Canada.[3] The river falls 70 metres (230 ft) on its trip to Lake Winnipeg where it spreads into the vast deltaic wetland known as Netley Marsh.
In the United States, the Red River is sometimes called the Red River of the North, to distinguish it from the Red River that is a tributary of the Mississippi River, which forms part of the border between Texas and Oklahoma.
Long a highway for trade, the Red has been designated as a Canadian Heritage River.
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History
The watershed of the Red River was part of Rupert's Land, the Hudson's Bay Company concession in north central North America. The Red was a key trade route for the company, and contributed to the settlement of British North America. The stream was used by fur traders, including the Métis people, and by the settlers of the Red River Colony, the primary settlement of which eventually became Winnipeg, Manitoba. The river gave its name to the Red River Trails, nineteenth-century oxcart trails which supported this trade and these settlements, and which led to further development of the region on both sides of the international border.
Geography
The Red River forms at Wahpeton, North Dakota and Breckenridge, Minnesota, passes through Fargo, North Dakota/Moorhead, Minnesota and Grand Forks, North Dakota/East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and then continues on to the province of Manitoba in Canada. Manitoba's capital — Winnipeg — is at the Red's confluence with the Assiniboine River, at a point commonly referred to as The Forks. The Red then flows further north before draining into Lake Winnipeg which is part of the Hudson Bay watershed.
Southern Manitoba has a comparatively long frost-free season, between 120 and 140 days in the Red River Valley.[4]
Geology
The Red River flows across the flat lakebed of the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz, an enormous glacial lake created at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation from meltwaters of the Laurentide ice sheet. As this continental glacier decayed, its meltwaters formed the lake, and over thousands of years sediments precipitated to the bottom of the lakebed. These lacustrine soils are the parent soils of today's Red River Valley. The river itself is very young; it began only after Lake Agassiz drained, about 9,500 years ago.[5]
The word "valley" is a misnomer. While the Red River drains the region, it did not create a valley wider than a few hundred feet, and the much-wider floodplain is the lakebed of the glacial lake.[5] It is remarkably flat; from its origin near Breckenridge, Minnesota to the international border near Emerson, Manitoba, its gradient is only about 1:5000, or approximately 1 foot per mile. The river, slow and small in most seasons, does not have the energy to cut a gorge. Instead it meanders across the silty bottomlands in its progress north.[5][6] In consequence, high water has nowhere to go, except to spread across the old lakebed in "overland flooding". Heavy snows or rains, on saturated or frozen soil, has caused a number of catastophic floods, which often are made worse by the fact that snowmelt starts in the warmer south, and waters flowing northward are often dammed or slowed by ice.[5][7] These periodic floods have the effect of refilling, in part, the ancient lake.[6]
Major floods in historic times include those of 1826, 1897, 1950, 1997, and 2009, and many years in between.[8] There have been many other floods in prehistoric times, of equal or greater size. These "paleofloods" are known from their effects on local landforms, and have been the subject of scholarly studies.[9]
1950 flood
On May 8, 1950 the Red River reached its highest level at Winnipeg since 1861.[10] Eight dikes protecting Winnipeg gave way and flooded much of the city, turning 600 square miles (1,554 km2) of farmland into an enormous lake. The city turned to the Canadian Army and the Red Cross for help, and nearly 70,000 people were evacuated from their homes and businesses. Four of eleven bridges in the city were destroyed, and damage was estimated at between $600 million and $1 billion.
As a result of the floods, a flood control project was started to ensure the same would never happen again. The Red River Floodway around Winnipeg was cause for some derision at the time, as it seemed massively overbuilt and was the largest earth-moving project in the world at the time. The project was completed under-budget, and has been used for at least some flood control twenty times in the thirty-seven years from its completion to 2006. The Floodway has saved an estimated $10 billion (CAD) in flood damages.
1997 flood
In the spring of 1997 a major flood of the Red River caused $3.5 billion in damage and required temporary evacuation of towns and cities on both sides of the border.
2009 flood
In 2009 the Red River flooded in early spring. By Friday, March 27, the river at Fargo had reached the highest level in recorded history,[11][12] and its discharge at that location was far in excess of normal flows.[13]
See also
- List of rivers of the United States
- Red River, other rivers with the same name
Notes
- ↑ Atlas of Canada. "Rivers of Canada". http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/facts/rivers.html. Retrieved 2008-08-02.
- ↑ Red River of the North, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
- ↑ Red River Map 3, Minnesota DNR; map shows the international border at river mile 155.
- ↑ Microsoft Encarta 2005. Retrieved on October 18, 2008.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Schwert, Don (interviewed by Tom Crann), The geology of the Red River flood plain, Minnesota Public Radio, 25 March 2005. Taped interview.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Meryhew, Richard (March 24, 2009). "Geology set the Red River on a course for flooding". Minneapolis Star-Tribune: pp. 1. http://www.startribune.com/local/41795147.html?elr=KArksUUUU.
- ↑ Puxley, Chinta (27 March 2009). "Manitoba flood forecasters say don't be alarmed by flooding in Dakota". Yahoo! News Canada. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090327/national/mba_flooding_15.
- ↑ Major Historical Floods in the Red River Basin
- ↑ Paleofloods in the Red River Basin
- ↑ "Winnipeg Flood - 1950". SOS! Canadian Disasters: Water. Library and Archives Canada. 14 February 2006. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/sos/002028-1200-e.html?PHPSESSID=gj191qoh91idmvrkkv03trjco2.
- ↑ Gunderson, Dan; Robertson, Tom, and Nelson, Tim (2009-03-27). "Red River tops historic marker, undermines dike". Minnesota Public Radio. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/27/flood_friday/. Retrieved 2009-03-27.
- ↑ Kolpack, Dave (March 28, 2009). "Red River valley gets good news in new flood forecast". Minnesota Public Radio. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/28/floodforecast/. (AP)
- ↑ "Real-Time Water Data for Red River of the North at Fargo, ND". National Water Information System: Web Interface. United States Geological Survey. 27 March 2009. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nd/nwis/uv/?site_no=05054000.
External links
- Canadian Council for Geographic Education page with a series of articles on the history of the Red River.
- Geological Survey of Canada page describing the nature and history of Red River floods.
- Minnesota DNR Red River website
- U.S. Geological Survey Reports and Abstracts Related to the Red River of the North
- Water Quality in the Red River of the North
- Fish of the Red River--Red River Angler's Guide
- North Dakota State University's Fargo Flood website
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