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Apr. 12th, 2009
The Mighty Sheyenne
Apr. 12th, 2009 04:17 pmSo mighty, it doesn't even get a headline!
Red River tributary poised to flood
By DAVE KOLPACK , Associated Press
Where I grew up in the flatlands o' Dakota, it was a long way to water: six miles to the mighty James River, famous for being one of the longest non-navigable rivers in the world -- even the Dakota tribes called it unnavigable, about ten miles to the mighty Sheyenne River, just outside the booming townlet of Sheyenne, ND, and Lake Juanita was about thirty miles across country. Devils Lake was forty miles, and, while we'd go to the city, we never went to Devils Lake. It stank in the summer. It stank really bad. Roll-up the windows and drive like hell bad. The James was dammed at Jamestown, but at sixty six miles, that wasn't a Sunday target. The James eventually went to the Gulf via the Missouri and Mississippi. The Sheyenne wandered off into the Red and drained into Lake Winnipeg. The Devil's Lake just evaporates and stinks.
We'd usually go to the Sheyenne. There was a better chance it'd have water in it than the James, and it wasn't as long a drive as the lake. If we wanted to pretend we went swimming, then we'd go to the lake. We'd drive across country, through a cow pasture, and put the boat in the water in back of a WPA dam named after the farm it was by. We'd rarely catch anything, which probably suited everybody just fine. If you look at a river in the flatlands, they look like they know they're not going anywhere, so rather than cover distance, they turn every which way so as to cover as much ground in as little distance as possible.
Red River tributary poised to flood
By DAVE KOLPACK , Associated Press
HORACE, N.D. - Residents of the Fargo area already have survived one threatening flood crest this spring on the Red River and are hunkered down for another. For others in the region, it's been more like slow torture as they wait for high water to peak on one of the Red's little brothers. More
Where I grew up in the flatlands o' Dakota, it was a long way to water: six miles to the mighty James River, famous for being one of the longest non-navigable rivers in the world -- even the Dakota tribes called it unnavigable, about ten miles to the mighty Sheyenne River, just outside the booming townlet of Sheyenne, ND, and Lake Juanita was about thirty miles across country. Devils Lake was forty miles, and, while we'd go to the city, we never went to Devils Lake. It stank in the summer. It stank really bad. Roll-up the windows and drive like hell bad. The James was dammed at Jamestown, but at sixty six miles, that wasn't a Sunday target. The James eventually went to the Gulf via the Missouri and Mississippi. The Sheyenne wandered off into the Red and drained into Lake Winnipeg. The Devil's Lake just evaporates and stinks.
We'd usually go to the Sheyenne. There was a better chance it'd have water in it than the James, and it wasn't as long a drive as the lake. If we wanted to pretend we went swimming, then we'd go to the lake. We'd drive across country, through a cow pasture, and put the boat in the water in back of a WPA dam named after the farm it was by. We'd rarely catch anything, which probably suited everybody just fine. If you look at a river in the flatlands, they look like they know they're not going anywhere, so rather than cover distance, they turn every which way so as to cover as much ground in as little distance as possible.
