Ruby Valley, Nevada

First timer? In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog), I use an app that provides a random latitutde and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48). I call this landing.

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. 

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2539; A Landing A Day blog post number 984

Dan:  Today’s lat/long (N40^o 6.472’, W115^o 33.482) puts me in central-NE Nevada:

Talk about empty space!  Check out my local landing map:

As you might guess from the above map, my watershed analysis is a no-brainer:

You guessed it.  Ruby Lake / Ruby Valley is internally-drained. Let’s use an oblique Google Earth (GE) shot to look up Ruby Valley:

And here’s a Wiki shot looking up the valley, taken from just south of my landing:

Speaking of Wiki, they have this to say about the Ruby Valley:

The valley played an important role in the history of the Great Basin. Nomadic tribes of the Shoshone nation used Ruby Valley as a winter home, finding it warmer than nearby locations. The California Trail, active after the 1840s, was located just to the north, although an alternate route known as the Hastings Cutoff (established in 1845) passed through the southern end of the valley and across the Ruby Mountains via the Overland Pass.

Here’s an oblique GE shot of the Overland Pass:

Hastings Cutoff was Wiki-clickable:

The Hastings Cutoff was an alternative route for westward emigrants to travel to California, as proposed by Lansford Hastings in The Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon and California. The ill-fated Donner Party infamously took the route in 1846.

A sentence in Hastings’ guidebook briefly describes the cutoff:

The most direct route, for the California emigrants, would be to leave the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east from Fort Hall [in today’s Idaho]; thence bearing West Southwest, to the Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of St. Francisco, by the route just described.

Yo, Mr. Hastings!  For west-bound travelers (which is the main point of his cutoff trail), it’s terrible to tell them to get off the main trail “two hundred miles east from Fort Hall.”  (FYI, Fort Hall is in Idaho.)

In other words, when you get to Fort Hall, you went two hundred miles too far.  So turn around, go two hundred miles, and make a right.

So how did Hastings get the word out about his trail?  Well in 1846, he positioned himself in Fort Bridger WY, just east of where his trail heads south.  (He obviously realized that Fort Hall was irrelevant to his trail.)  He wrote an open invitation to west-bound travelers to meet him in Fort Bridger, and gave it to an east-bound traveler, telling him to spread the word to those he met on his way, so they would travel together on his cut-off trail.

About 70 wagons took him up on his offer.  According to Wiki:

They endured a difficult descent down Weber Canyon [down to the Salt Lake Valley], a waterless drive of 80 miles across the Great Salt Lake Desert, and a lengthy detour around the Ruby Mountains [and then across the Overland Pass]. Despite the usual trials of overland travel, they arrived safely in California.

More famously, the Donner Party followed the Hastings Cutoff that same year, just behind Hastings’ party.  It was Donner’s intent to meet up with Hastings, but they arrived in Fort Bridger about a week late.

After Hastings realized how tough the trail down Weber Canyon was, he wrote up a suggestion for an alternate route down to the Salt Lake Valley, and sent a currier eastbound to let following travelers know.  Maybe he heard that the Donner Party was coming, and knew he missed them.

Anyway, word did get to the Donner Party.  From Wiki:

The roadbuilding required through the Wasatch Mountains [to avoid Weber Canyon] and the grueling Great Salt Lake Desert delayed them. When they had arrived at the California Trail [after traversing the Overland Pass], they were delayed about a month. The party arrived at Donner Pass just as an early winter storm rendered it impassable. After becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada, many died of starvation, and some of the emigrants resorted to eating their animals and the deceased members of the group.

More about the Donner Party in a bit.  On to the Overland Pass entry from Wiki:

Overland Pass was also the site of much activity in the 1860s. A trading post and a way station there for a mail and stagecoach line was established in 1860. The Pony Express and its successor, the Transcontinental Telegraph, also ran through Overland Pass.

In 1862 Fort Ruby was established at the east entrance to the pass to protect the passage of settlers on their way California during the war years.

Around 1866, Wells Fargo began to develop agriculture in the Ruby Valley to help support its way stations.

But, in the late 1860s the Transcontinental Railroad was routed well to the north, and Overland Pass fell into disuse. Fort Ruby was closed in September 1869, seven years after it was built.

While the Hastings Cutoff was still active, it was also a portion of the Central Overland Trail (which included the Overland Pass).  From Family Search.com, here’s a map:

And a short write-up:

The Central Overland Trail was a shortcut of the California Trail. It was surveyed, improved for stagecoaches, and opened by the U.S. Army in 1859 from Salt Lake City, Utah through central Nevada to Carson City, Nevada, a distance of about 650 miles. This more direct route shaved off 280 miles, about two weeks travel time, from the length of the original California Trail.

The Central Overland Route quickly took an important role in the American economy. Several stage lines could reach California from Missouri in 25 to 28 days of travel day and night using this trail. California gold was often sent east for Union army payrolls via this route. Likewise, the Pony Express coast-to-coast 10-day mail service (1860-1861) and the first transcontinental telegraph line (1861) also followed this route.

Well, there you have it.  I was excited to find a YouTube video of a horseback rider approaching the Overland Pass.  But reading the fine print, it turns out there are two “Overland Passes” along the Central Overland Trail, and this one is just west of the one we’ve been talking about.  Interestingly, when I typed “Overland Pass” into Google Earth, it knew there were two:

Anyway, here’s the video.  It’s very short and worth the watch to get a feel for what it like plodding across the desert on horseback:

As promised, I have some more on the Donner Party, and yes, I featured Donner Pass and the Donner Party in a previous January 2013, Truckee CA post.  From that post:

Speaking of Donner Pass, it’s located about 5 miles from my landing.  Here’s an oblique GE shot showing Donner Lake in the foreground (which used to be called Truckee Lake, by the way), and Donner Pass in the distance.  This is the setting for the Donner party drama discussed a little later in the post.  My landing (not shown) is off to the left.

A two-lane road (the old Lincoln Highway) climbs through Donner Pass.  FYI, I-80 follows the Old Lincoln Highway for the most part, but climbs over the mountain a little north of Donner Pass (at an elevation more than 100 feet higher than Donner Pass).  Here’s a Wiki picture of Donner Pass (looking east), with the caption beneath:

Donner Lake in the distance and the now abandoned railroad grade over Donner Pass. The Lincoln Highway can be seen in the middle of the photo, climbing the pass, on the left side of the photo

This about Donner Pass, from Wiki:

To reach California from the East, pioneer emigrants had to get their wagons over the Sierra.  In 1844, the Stephens Party followed the Truckee River up into the mountains. At the head of what is now called Donner Lake, they found a low notch in the mountains and became the first overland emigrants to use the pass.

The pass received its name, however, from another group of California-bound emigrants. In early November 1846, the Donner Party found the route blocked by snow and was forced to spend the winter on the eastern side of the mountains, in cabins near Donner Lake.  Of the 81 emigrants, only 45 survived to reach California; some of them resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Also from Wiki (more detail on the Donner Party ordeal):

Both a source of settler pride and an example of hubris, the Donner Party ordeal is Truckee’s most famous historical event. In 1846, a group of settlers from Illinois, originally known as the Donner-Reed Party but now usually referred to as the Donner Party, became snowbound in early fall as a result of several trail mishaps, poor decision-making, and an early onset of winter that year.

Choosing multiple times to take shortcuts to save distance compared to the traditional Oregon Trail, coupled with infighting, a disastrous crossing of the Utah salt flats, and the attempt to use the pass near the Truckee River (now Donner Pass) all caused delays in their journey.

Finally, a massive, early blizzard brought the remaining settlers to a halt at the edge of what is now Donner Lake – about 1,200 feet below the steep granite summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains and 90 miles east of their final destination, Sutter’s Fort near Sacramento.

Several attempts at carting their few remaining wagons, oxen, and supplies – sometimes by pulling them up by rope – over the summit proved impossible due to freezing conditions and a lack of any pre-existing trail. The party returned to their camp near Donner Lake, broken in spirit and short on supplies.

What followed during the course of the brutal winter is a miserable story of starvation, including cannibalism. The survivors were saved by a Reed Party member who had been ejected from the party months earlier (and taken a different trail to Sacramento).  Seeing that the Donner Party never arrived at Sutter’s Fort, he initiated several relief parties. Of the original 87 settlers, 48 remarkably survived the ordeal.

Moving right along . . . this, about Donner Pass weather, from Wiki:

Winter weather at Donner Pass can be brutal. At an average of over 34 feet of snow per year, Donner Pass is one of the snowiest places in the United States.  Four times since 1880 total snowfall at Donner Summit has exceeded 60 feet and topped  65 feet in both 1938 and 1953.

Wow.  A brutal place to winter over with no food in an unheated cabin . . .

OK.  Time to head back to the Ruby Valley, with some wonderful pictures posted on GE, starting with this by DC Carr:

Fence near cabin.

And this, by Don Hall

By Gary Clark:

By Michael Cotton:

And saving the best for last, by our old friend Ralph Maughan:

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

© 2021 A Landing A Day

Cherry Spring, Stonewall, Fredericksburg and Willow City, Texas

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog), I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. 

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2538; A Landing A Day blog post number 983

Dan:  Today’s lat/long (N30^o 24.951’, W98^o 58.755) puts me in central Texas:

Here’s my local landing map:

As is usually the case, I had to rely on Google Earth (GE) to get my more local streams:

I landed in the watershed of Crabapple Creek; on to Sandy Ck; on to the Colorado River (32^nd hit).  Moving over to StreetAtlas and zooming back so you can see that the Colorado discharges to the Gulf of Mexico:

The Orange Dude got pretty close to my landing, although he couldn’t get a clear view:

Here’s what he sees:

My drainage heads due east, and passes through a culvert (at this point an unnamed tributary). Looking west towards my landing:

The OD bypassed Crabapple Creek, but got this look at Sandy Creek just before it discharges into the Colorado:

Gee.  I wonder how Sandy Creek got its name?

Anyway, the Wiki entry for Cherry Spring somewhat casually mentioned that Herman Lehman was a famous white captive of the Apaches.  Herman was wiki-clickable:

Herman Lehmann (1859 – 1932) was captured as a child by Native Americans. He lived first among the Apache and then the Comanche but eventually returned to his family later in life. The phenomenon of a white child raised by Indians made him a notable figure in the United States. He published his autobiography, Nine Years Among the Indians in 1927.

On May 16, 1870, a raiding party of eight to ten Apaches captured Herman Lehmann, who was almost eleven, and his eight-year-old brother, Willie, while they were in the fields at their mother’s request to scare the birds from the wheat.

Four days later, the Apache raiding party encountered an Army patrol which had been sent to recover the two Lehmann boys. In the short battle that followed, Willie Lehmann was able to escape, but the Apaches fled with young Herman.

A few months after Lehman’s capture, the Apaches lied and told Lehmann they had killed his entire family, depriving him of any incentive to attempt escape. The Apaches took Herman Lehmann to their village in eastern New Mexico. He was adopted by a man named Carnoviste and his wife, Laughing Eyes.

The Apaches called Lehmann “En Da” (White Boy). He spent about six years with them and became assimilated into their culture, rising to the position of petty chief. As a young warrior, one of his most memorable battles was with the Texas Rangers on August 24, 1875.  Texas. Ranger James Gillett nearly shot Lehmann before he realized he was a white captive. When the Rangers tried to find Lehmann later, he escaped by crawling through the grass.

Around the spring of 1876, Herman Lehmann killed an Apache medicine man avenging his killing of his adoptive father.  Fearing revenge, he fled from the Apaches and spent a year alone in hiding. He became lonely and decided to search for a Comanche tribe that he might join.

He observed a tribe all day long then entered the camp just after dark. At first they were going to kill him, however, a young warrior approached him that spoke the Apache tongue. Lehmann then explained his situation—that he was born white adopted by the Indians and that he left the Apaches after killing the medicine man. He joined the Comanches who gave him a new name, Montechema (meaning unknown).

In the spring of 1877, Lehmann and the Comanches attacked buffalo hunters on the high plains of Texas. Lehmann was wounded by hunters in a surprise attack (the last major fight between Indians and non-Indians in Texas).

In July 1877, Comanche chief Quanah, who had successfully negotiated the surrender of the last fighting Comanches in 1875, was sent in search of renegade Comanches who refused to surrender, including Herman. Quanah persuaded them to quit fighting and come to the Indian reservation in present-day Oklahoma. While Lehmann initially refused to go to the reservation, he later followed at Quanah’s request, and lived with Quanah’s family on the reservation in 1877-78. Several people took notice of the white boy living among the Indians. Lehmann’s mother still searched for her son. She questioned authorities whether there were any blue eyed boys on the reservation and was told yes; however, the description led them to believe that this was not her boy. Nevertheless, she requested that the boy be brought to her.

Five soldiers and a driver escorted Lehmann to the mother’s home in Loyal Valley, Texas, where he arrived nine years after his capture. The people of Loyal Valley gathered to see the captive boy brought home. Upon his arrival, neither he nor his mother recognized one another.

It was his sister who found a scar on his arm, which had been caused by her when they were playing with a hatchet. His family surrounded him welcoming him home and the distant memories began to come back. Hearing someone repeat “Herman”, he thought that sounded familiar.

At first, he was sullen and wanted nothing to do with his mother and siblings. As he put it, “I was an Indian, and I did not like them because they were palefaces.” Lehmann’s readjustment to his original culture was slow and painful.  He rejected food offered, and was unaccustomed to sleeping in a bed.

He had forgotten how to speak English, and considered himself a Comanche.  He frequently left his mother’s house to stay by himself in the wilderness.  But slowly, he reconciled to his new life, and re-entered white society.

Lehmann became a very popular figure in southwestern Oklahoma and the Texas Hill Country, appearing at county fairs and rodeos. To thrill audiences, such as he did in 1925 at the Old Settlers Reunion in Mason County, he would chase a calf around an arena, kill it with arrows, jump off his horse, cut out the calf’s liver, and eat it raw.

He wrote his autobiography, Nine Years Among the Indians (1927) is considered one of the finest captivity narratives in American literature.

Here’s Herman in full regalia:

And in later life:

The name Stonewall caught my eye, so I checked it out.  From Wiki:

Stonewall (pop 525) was named for Confederate General Stonewal Jackson, who established a stage station near the site in 1870.

Stonewall is the birthplace and deathplace of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, and his “LBJ Ranch” (much of which is now the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park) is located nearby.

Here’s LBJ’s childhood home:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

He’s buried at the LBJ ranch near Stonewall:

It looks like a working ranch!

Here’s a little bit about LBJ from ConstitutionCenter.org:

Johnson was indeed from humble origins. He was born in 1908, in Stonewall, Texas. The Johnson family had been in the area for generations, but Johnson’s father had financial problems, and the future President grew up under difficult circumstances. As Senator and President, Johnson had a chance to translate his sympathy for the less fortunate into real social policy laws.

Johnson’s first career was as a teacher.  As a student at Southwest Texas State Teachers College, Johnson was assigned to a tiny Hispanic school in a deeply impoverished area on the Mexican border. Johnson left his brief career as a teacher after four years to pursue politics during the Great Depression.

Johnson entered the Naval Reserves while still a Congressman, and on his only bombing run, he boarded a plane called the Wabash Cannonball for a mission in the South Pacific. A last-second trip off the plane to use a bathroom saved Johnson’s life. On his return from the facilities, Johnson boarded another plane that survived the mission. The Wabash Cannonball crashed, with a total loss of life.

Johnson won election to the U.S. Senate in 1948 after winning a Democratic primary by only 87 votes. Allegations of voter fraud are debated to this day.

After losing a bitter campaign against Kennedy in the 1960 Democratic primary, the Kennedys shocked observers by choosing Johnson as Kennedy’s running mate.

The Johnson presidency was incredibly active. In addition to pursuing the Vietnam War, President Johnson pressed on with an expansive slate of programs labeled as the “Great Society” that included three landmark civil rights bills and Medicare. But Vietnam’s impact damaged Johnson’s political base severely, and he declined to run in the 1968 presidential election.

So.  I landed near Fredericksburg back in January of 2011.  From that post:

More from Wiki:

Balanced Rock was a famous local landmark that perched atop Bear Mountain ten miles north of Fredericksburg.  The natural wonder stone pillar, about the size of a small elephant, precariously balanced on its small tip.  It fell prey to vandals who dynamited it off its base in April 1986.

Are you kidding me!?!  OK, this isn’t as bad as the Taliban and the Buddha statues in Afghanistan, but give me a break!  I would have no sympathy for the scoundrels who perpetrated this atrocity!

There were a series of comments on this post, starting with this one by Louis:

Pertaining to Balanced Rock.

Some friends and I were actually on top of Balanced Rock the night it was blown up, we used to go there regularly. We found out about it the next day at school and it creeped us out wondering if individuals that blew it up were waiting for us to leave. There was not much of an investigation and it’s believed by some that the adjacent quarry which owned the mountain blew it up before it could be made into a state park.

Clark Ent replied:

That is horrible news. I was thinking of taking my daughters there to see it. In my effort to find it ( I went as a child) I saw that it had been blown up.

86 Grad also replied:

“…believed by some that the adjacent quarry which owned the mountain blew it up before it could be made into a state park.”

Believed by everyone else to be the class of 1986.

Gigijb then replied:

I covered that story for the FHS [Fredericksburg High School] Comet newspaper when it happened. I don’t remember hearing anything about the ’86 class having done it. The prevailing thought was the quarry. Unless of course 86 Grad, you are admitting to something now some 30+ years later!

Oh my! Such drama!

That same post, I also featured Willow:

Moving on to Willow City:  there’s a scenic “loop” roadway that passes through Willow City (called, of all things, the Willow City Loop).  Here’s a map:

From TripAdvisor.com, I found this post (authored by “trumpetguru”):

Scenic, rustic, beautiful, just a few words to describe the Willow City Loop.

Only 10-15 minutes up HWY 16 from Fredericksburg, this drive is a must see if you are in the area from March 1 – Memorial Day. The drive down I-10 to get to Fredericksburg was memorable. My wife and I saw MILES of bluebonnets, sunflowers, and indian paintbrush along the median and in the hills.

This was nothing compared to the beauty that awaited us. Here you will find fields upon fields, acres upon acres of wildflowers, some stretching (LITERALLY!) as far as the eye can see. . . .Shutterbugs, professional photographers, families on a drive, you will all love this wonderful drive.

Here are a couple of photographs of the Willow City Loop from trumpetguru:

I’ll close with this very peculiar GE Panaramio “photo” of the Willow City Loop (by Gregory Effinger).  It looks very much like a painting, but perhaps it’s a photo done over to look like a painting.  Anyway, here ‘tis:

Back to now.  I’ll close with yet another (but much more recent) blue bonnet shot by Becky Robbins:

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

© 2021 A Landing A Day

Devils Lake, North Dakota

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog), I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. 

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2537; A Landing A Day blog post number 982

Dan:  Today’s lat/long (N47^o 55.905’, W99^o 27.515) puts me in central-NE North Dakota:

Here’s my local landing map:

I’ll jump right to my streams-only StreetAtlas map:

As you can see, I landed in the watershed of the Sheyenne River (11^th hit); on to the Red River of the North (50^th hit).  Although not shown, the Red River makes its way (in Canada) to the Nelson River (69^th hit); on to the Hudson Bay.

Over on Google Earth (GE), the Orange Dude was able to position himself on a bridge over the Sheyenne up stream from my landing:

Here’s what he sees (looking downstream):

Kudos to the ND DOT for their lovely sign!

While perusing StreetAtlas, I noted that I landed close to a very significant hydrologic feature:

Yes!  There’s a magnificent (albeit lesser-known) Continental Divide!  Unlike the much more dramatic one out west, this one meanders across low-lying topography that would not be at all obvious to the casual observer.

While perusing, I happened to see a waterway that cut right across the divide.  Huh? That doesn’t make sense:

It’s the McClusky canal.  From the abstract of a professional paper by Jerry Schaack and Warren Jarrison entitled “McClusky Canal Improvements:”

The McClusky Canal is a 74-miIe long channel, constructed from 1969 to 1976 for transporting water from the Missouri River Basin (in the Gulf of Mexico watershed) to the Red River Basin (in the Hudson Bay watershed). McClusky Canal was designed to provide water for the irrigation of 250,000 acres of agricultural land in the Red River Basin, which had insufficient local water sources for that purpose.

To transport water by gravity from the regulating reservoir (Lake Audubon) across the continental divide, it was necessary for the McClusky Canal to follow a meandering course through cuts as deep as 100+ feet.

Obviously, Lake Audubon and the Missouri River must be at a higher elevation than the adjoining land in the Red River Basin.

So imagine you’re a water molecule, peacefully hanging out at the eastern end of Lake Audubon.  Maybe you’re stalled there in the lake for a while, but if you manage to avoid evaporating, you figure that eventually you’ll make it to the Mississippi River and thence to the Gulf of Mexico.  From there, who knows?  Maybe a Caribbean vacation in and amongst a lovely coral reef?  A wave breaking on a Cancun beach?

But then you feel a tug that has you headed out the end of the lake.  Oh no!  You’re going to jump the Continental Divide and end up in Hudson Bay instead.  If you don’t evaporate, your dreams of a Caribbean vacation certainly do.  . . .

Speaking of hydrologic features, what about my titular Devil’s Lake?  From Wiki:

Devils Lake is the largest natural body of water in North Dakota.  Devils Lake is an endorheic, or closed, lake with a drainage basin of some 3,800 sq mi.  Above an elevation of 1,447 ft, the lake spills into neighboring Stump Lake.  Add another 11 feet in elevation, and at 1,458 ft, the combined lake flows naturally into the Sheyenne River, though the lake has not reached this level in approximately 1,000 years.

Because Devils Lake is endorheic, the lake tends to be much higher in salinity than are lakes with outlets to river systems. This is similar to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.  Salinity levels in the lake have been one prominent aspect of the debate over diversion of lake water into the Sheyenne River, with questions of the potential environmental impact of the diverted water on downstream rivers, lakes, and communities.

[More about this diversion issue in a bit.]

Devils Lake is well known for its wide variations in lake levels, with large swings between low and high water levels.  The low, flat terrain around Devils Lake consists of various coulees, channels, and basins, which may be separated during times of low water, or connected during high water.  Thus the boundaries of the lake can vary greatly from year to year, depending on the amount of precipitation.

An increase in precipitation between 1993 and 1999 caused the lake to double in size, forcing the displacement of more than 300 homes and flooding 70,000 acres of farmland.

GE lets us look at historical aerial photos.  Here’s the most recent – from 2020:

Let’s go back to before the rainy 1990s, to 1988 (at exactly the same scale):

Wow.  Quite a difference.  Let’s zero in on the big island in the western part of the lake (2020):

Take a look at the same shot back in 1988:

There’s no island, just a fat peninsula!

So, back around the year 2000, people started looking at what they could do so that the Lake wouldn’t get any higher.  The Devil’s Lake Outlet project was born.  From Wiki:

During the most recent wet cycle which began in 1993, the lake rose over 26.5 ft, inundating 140 sq mi of primarily agricultural land.

The Army Corps of Engineers proposed to draw a maximum of 300 cu ft/sec of water from Devil’s Lake (discharging to the Sheyenne River), in order to prevent even more inundation.  The Engineers estimated its project costs to amount to $186.5 million, with the United States Congress designating $100 million to the project; North Dakota would have paid the remaining amount.   Because of high salinity, the project potentially affected the Red River , which runs into Canadian waters.  Therefore, the project was considered to be subject to the Boundary Waters Treaty, and international issues were raised.

ND officials didn’t like being dictated to by the Feds (sound familiar?)  Back to Wiki:

Led by Governor John Hoeven, North Dakota objected to the water quality provisions and the amount of funding required.  Instead it constructed its own outlet, with approval of the ND Department of Health and the U.S. State Department, [wait!  That is the Feds!].

This outlet, which cost $28 million, has a lower maximum discharge than the federal proposal (limited to a maximum of 100 cu ft/sec by Permit); its gravel filter removes only larger organisms. But it has provided some relief to the flood problem.  Construction began in 2003 and was completed as of summer 2005.

The state outlet project was opposed by the governments of Minnesota and Manitoba, Canada. They argued that the outlet would create the potential for the transfer of unknown foreign aquatic species and high levels of sulfates into the Red River basin, an important agricultural area, and Lake Winnipeg, the world’s 10th-largest freshwater lake.

In 2005, a joint US and Canadian study concluded that none of the 13 species Canada classifies as invasive were present in Devils Lake.  And, because Lake Winnipeg covers approximately 9,400 sq mi, dozens of times larger than Devils Lake, the salinity (specifically sulfate) issue wasn’t deemed significant.

The door was now open for ND to do whatever they wanted.  So now, there are two engineered outlets, allowing up to 600 cu ft/sec of flow. 

2          oplgrQ`1Q1 

[OUR CAT  LORENZO JUST WALKED ACROSS THE KEYBOARD, AND YES, JUST BEFORE HE HIT THE “Q”, HE TURNED ON CAPS LOCK . . .]

Here’s a map from the ND Water Commission:

And here’s a graph showing the changes in lake elevation in time:

So, if we just let nature be nature, the lake would surpass 1458’ in elevation before it began overflowing.  Let’s say it might go several feet higher before the lake level actually stabilized.  Let’s say 1460’

As you can see on the above chart, the maximum level with the outlets in place has been 1454.  So, for 6’ of flooding (which, I realize, would flood a lot of farm land), the State of ND has spent a lot of money.  It just so happens that I found a very applicable University of ND Masters Thesis by David Andrew Barta entitled the “Cost Effectiveness of Devils Lake Decision-Making:  An Economic Case Study of  a Climate-Driven Wicked Probblem.”

Wicked?  More about that in a bit.  Anyway, here’s a chart from his thesis. By the way, CIP = Continuing Infrastructure Protection; i.e., money spent on the outlets and maintaining them:

Phew.  As of 2011, they had spent over $1 billion on this problem.  But, now check out a map prepared by Mr. Barta of what the lake would look like at 1460’:

The city of Devils Lake (pop 7200) is an island!

Mr. Barta estimated the 2002 relocation costs associated with this flooding are (guess what?)  about $1 billion.  He refers to decision-making for this extremely complex kind of situation “wicked,” which is (believe it or not) a legitimate technical term. Wicked is defined thusly by Mr. Barta:

“Wicked Problems”, as they are referred to in the literature, are characterized by their unique nature, multiple possible problem definitions, technical and social complexity, ability to cause ancillary complex problems, difficulty to model and test, lack of distinct end point, and lack of “good” solutions (i.e. a “good” solution can be defined as one wherein the benefits clearly outweigh the costs of implementation and potential costs of externalities).

Well, the powers-that-be clearly decided the money is worth it . . .

I’m going to circle back into traditional ALAD territory and look at the name “Devils Lake.”  From Wiki:

The name “Devils Lake” is a calque of the Dakota words mni (water) wak’áŋ (literally “pure source”, also translated as “spirit” or “sacred”). The Dakota consider it holy because they believe it is the home of the underwater serpent Unktehi.

So first off – what’s a “calque?”  Calque is Wiki-clickable: 

In linguistics, a calque is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word translation.

So – a literal word-for-word translation would be the various combinations of “water” and “pure source” / “spirit” / “sacred.”  I’m sure it would be OK to substitute “Lake” for “water.”  So how about Spirit Lake or Sacred Lake?  So where does “Devil” come in?  Back to Wiki:

The Dakota name is reflected in the name of the Spirit Lake Tribe and the nearby town of Minnewaukan.

“Minnewaukan” is a pretty good Anglicization of mni wak’an.  And there’s “Spirit Lake,” as suggested above.  Back to Wiki: 

European-American settlers mistranslated the name to mean “Bad Spirit Lake”, or “Devils Lake”.

Wait a second.  How do you “mistranslate” something that is holy and good into something that is bad or evil?  Back to Wiki:

The “bad” referred to the high salinity of the lake, making it unfit to drink, and “spirit” meant the mirages often seen across the water.

Time out.  I don’t buy this for a second.  The lake has always had good fishing (and in fact is today a main tourist draw), and just because it was a little salty doesn’t make it “Bad Spirit Lake” or “Devils Lake.”  I mean, the Mormons called their lake “The Great Salt Lake.” They certainly didn’t think it was evil! Before I comment further, back to Wiki:

The Christian concept of the devil is not present in Dakota philosophy.

Thanks, Wiki, for making one of my points.  Back to Wiki:

The Hidatsa Nation also accessed the lake, and their name for the lake is mirixubaash (“sacred water”).

OK.  So the Indians obviously got it right, with the “Spirit Lake Tribe.”  And someone else got it right, with the town name “Minnewaukan.”  But Devils Lake?  I don’t believe it was named that because of salty water!  Here’s my take: It was named that because some one (or ones) didn’t trust the Indians; didn’t like the Indians; didn’t believe the Indians had any positive beliefs (after all, they weren’t Christians).

If I lived near the Lake I’d be delighted to lead a movement (even if I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere) to rename the lake and town to “Spirit Lake.”

While I was Googling Devils Lake, I happened to notice that there’s also a Devils Lake in Wisconsin. When I read the Wiki entry, I was blown away:

Devil’s Lake was so named because it is situated in a deep chasm with no visible inlet or outlet. The term, devil’s lake is a misinterpretation of the Ho-Chunk name Tawacunchukdah or Da-wa-kah-char-gra, which better translates to “Sacred Lake” or “Spirit Lake.” Spirit Lake is highly significant in Ho-Chunk oral history, and voices of spirits were often heard during the celebrations.

I’m at a loss for words. . .

All righty.  Time for some Spirit…er…Devils Lake photos.  First this, of a house built back in the day when no one guessed that the Lake would ever get to this level, by StarGazerHerman:

OK, OK. The owners of the above house would probably go along with “Devils Lake.”

And this, by Chris Jorgenson:

I’ll close with this hauntingly beautiful (one could say spiritual) shot by Adam Beine:

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

© 2021 A Landing A Day

Dillon, Montana

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog), I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. 

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2536; A Landing A Day blog post number 981

Dan:  Today’s lat/long (N45^o 19.034’, W112^o 48.283) puts me in southwest Montana:

Here’s my local landing map:

My watershed analysis quickly got a little dicey. Typically, if my steams-only SteetAtlas map fails me, then I head over to Google Earth (GE), where I can usually get the names of smaller streams.  But this time GE failed me.  So off I went in search of a US Geological Survey topo map.  Bingo!  So, here’s what I found:

So, I landed in the watershed of the Frying Pan Gulch (great name!).  But I had to zoom back to get additional information:

Frying Pan Gulch discharges to Gilbert Slough and then on to Albers Slough.  “What’s a slough?” you may ask.  Well, its meaning is a little hazy, but under the header “North American” it says “a side channel, or a natural channel that is only sporadically filled with water.”  And it rhymes with pow.  Interestingly, the same word (spelling-wise) is a description of what happens when some rock or soil slumps – something less than a landslide.  In this case, it rhymes with tough.

Anyway, here’s my SteetAtlas map, minus a definitive connection between Albers Slough and the Beaverhead River (you’ll have to trust me on this one):

By the way, the two sloughs are “side channels” to the Beaverhead River.

The Beaverhead (5^th hit, making it the 177^th river on my list of rivers with at least 5 hits); on to the Jefferson (9^th hit); on to the Missouri (447^th hit); on, of course to the Mississippi (981^st hit). 

Moving over to GE, here’s an oblique look at my local Frying Pan Gulch drainage pathway:

The Orange Dude couldn’t get very close to my landing, but he was able to kill two birds with one stone, getting a look at Frying Pan Gulch & the landing spot:

Here’s a close-up of his spot:

Here’s what he sees:

The term “gulch” is actually applicable to the section of the stream up in the hills.  Down here in the flats, it ain’t much of anything – I think better referred to as a slough . . .

Going back to GE, let’s take a couple more looks at the Frying Pan Gulch.  First another oblique shot:

And here we’re looking straight down at a longer stretch of the Gulch:

I want you to notice how Frying Pan Gulch cuts across the topographic ridges which are undoubtedly controlled by the local geologic structure.  So, here’s what must be going on: Some number of millions (10s of millions?) years ago, this whole area was lower in elevation and the ridges were flattened by erosion, or covered by sediment.  The ancestral Frying Pan Gulch was flowing west to east, oblivious to the underlying geology.

The entire region was uplifted due to plate tectonic movements, and erosion began accelerating.  The ridges began to stand out, because the ridge-forming rocks were more resistant to erosion.  But the mighty Frying Pan could cut vertically down through the more resistant ridge-forming rocks, creating a whole series of mini-water gaps.

Voila!  Today’s topography is the result.

After all of this watershed & geology stuff, I don’t have much left in the tank for Dillon.  There wasn’t much of great interest about the town.  I mean – it’s in a beautiful area and I’m sure it’s a great place to live, work and raise a family. 

LIke I said, it’s a beautiful area: here’s a photo from Trip Advisor of the Big Hole River north of Dillon:

And here’s on from Britannica, of Lemhi Pass near Dillon:

I’ve ended up focusing on the story of an elephant that died in 1943 in Dillon.  From Roadside America:

Famous elephant Old Pitt lived most of her life as a performer in Robinson’s Great Combination Show. which at one time had the largest captive elephant herd in the world.  A bank panic in 1916 forced Robinson to sell out to Ringling Brothers.

Robinson retired to a farm in Terrace Park, a Cincinnati suburb, but kept four of his senior elephants — Clara, Tillie, Tony, and Old Pitt — with him. Neighbors became accustomed to seeing elephants pulling plows, or wandering along the roads.

Robinson and his elephants still toured them from time to time, performing their old circus act, The Military Elephants. According to news accounts, “The elephants would dash about in military garb, maneuver and fire cannons. One would fall wounded and Tillie, wearing a Red Cross nurse’s cap, would rush to the rescue.”

Robinson died in 1921. Over the following decade, Clara, Tillie, and Tony joined him (Tillie was buried wearing her nurse’s cap).

Finally, in 1942, Mrs. Robinson gave Pitt, who was supposedly more than 100 years old, to the Cole Brothers circus. In August of 1943 the circus was working its way across Montana in a series of one-nighters, on its way toward Salt Lake City. On August 6th they pulled into Dillon.  Old Pitt never left.

The elephants were lined up at the entrance, ready to make their grand entry to perform Ballet of the Elephants, when a severe storm approached. Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning filled the sky and zapped Pitt, knocking her down, killing her instantly. The other elephants were badly stunned but recovered.

Pitt was honored with a funeral ceremony, and circus folk adorned her grave with flowers. A permanent marker was later installed, and a fence placed around the grave.

Over 75 years later the grave marker and fence still can be found at the Beaverhead County Fairgrounds, back behind the rodeo stands, in the middle of a field. A tree has been planted inside the fence.

It’s time to shut this one down. While perusing photos posted on GE, I noticed that nearly all of the pictures near my landing were credited to one Eve Wills.  I’ll finish off this post with four (count ‘em – four) lovely photos from Eve:

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

© 2021 A Landing A Day