Talk:Red River of the North

Flood of 1826

I grew up on the Red River of the North and I never read about, nor heard oral history from old-timers, of a flood (let alone a major flood) in 1826. No one was recording floods that early either. One of the early and major floods of record was 1897. Others after that were 1948, 1950, 1966, 1969, 1979, and 1997. There were other minor floods in other years. I challenge the 1826 date... -- 6 October 2005 (UTC) Trish Lewis

You can challenge it but every Canadian historian will tell you you've been hearing your oral history from Americans. --AlexWCovington (talk) 01:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's not forget that "a flood" by no means implies that the entire river flooded! To be specific, in Fargo the maximum flood level was in 1997 at 28,000 cfs, followed by 1969 (25,300) and 1897 (25,000). However, the top three in Grand Forks are 1997 at 136,900 cfs, then 1826 (135,000) and 1852 (95,000). For Winnipeg it's 1826 at 225,000 cfs, 1852 (165,000) and 1997 (162,000). As you can see, different years lead to different flows at different points. As you can also see, the flooding in Winnipeg is generally much worse, which should not be surprising given snowfall patterns and the fact that it's down-river. To answer the original question, here is the answer to your challenge [1] Maury (talk) 23:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I edited the damages to Manitoba to 500 million from 51 million. First 51 seems really, really low considering the extent of the damages. I don't have a 'real' source right off-hand, but the article on the 1997 Red River Flood has a figure of 500 million, so that's what I used.

Alvaro Garza

Do we really need an entire section about a near drowning? Although the event took place in the Red River, I'm not sure that it actually is a good fit for a generic article about the Red River itself. I propose removing the material. --MatthewUND^(talk) 08:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Alvaro Garza

While this might be mentioned in a sentence or two if we had a more comprehensive history of the Red River, I agree that having a whole section is a little overboard. The reason I would include a mention of this is because it was a big news story on the regional/ national scene at the time (December 1987). It had been featured in magazines such as Life and People; was mentioned in the NY Times and the major news outlets; and Garrison Keillor has mentioned it a time or two on his show. Also this is not the only incident of near cold water drowning, even at that time. I propose there may be a better home for this information, maybe under the DROWNING or related article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.217.199.68 (talk) 23:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

That's not notable at all and should be removed. However, the name should not be mentioned at all, because of data protection. --213.155.231.26 12:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

"Data" protection? --MatthewUND^(talk) 21:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Since the boy is/was not a notable person in public life, the name should not be mentioned. --213.155.231.26 16:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Conversions to Imperial needed

The Metric distances need to have Imperial equivalents. clariosophic (talk) 13:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC) I have put in the ones I found in the Time Almanac 2003, but there are more. clariosophic (talk) 13:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC) Also it would be helful to have a breakdown of the distances in the US and in Canada. It appears that the distance in the US is more than half of the total length. clariosophic (talk) 13:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC) According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the length the US is 394 miles.[2] clariosophic (talk) 14:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

According to that site ([3]) the river's total length is 550 miles. And there are excellent maps of the US part there too, with river miles labeled. The source is marked as mile 550 and the US-Canada border as river mile 155. This would make the US portion 395 miles long and the Canada portion 155 miles long. River length measurements often differ from source to source, especially for meandering rivers like the Red, so it's not surprising to see one site say 545 miles and another 550. The Red River, The Columbia Gazetteer of North America] puts the length at only 533 miles. Since the MN DNR source seems particularly good (check out those maps), perhaps we can use it for total length and US-Canada lengths. If I get the chance I'll make the edits. Also for metric-imperial equivalents I'll use the convert template to keep things matched up nicely, time permitting.. Pfly (talk) 17:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no reason to use Imperial measure. Metric measure is appropriate for any Wikipedia article, and also appropriate for an article about Canada. U.S. Customary measure is appropriate for an article about the U.S. Imperial measure is irrelevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 14:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Proper Name

What's the correct name, just "Red River" or "Red River of the North" 63.26.74.103 (talk) 06:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)eric

The current lead has it correct, the name is just "Red River" (at least according to USGS), but "Red River of the North" is commonly used in the U.S. to distinguish it from the larger Red River in the southern U.S. Kmusser (talk) 16:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

the local news up here just calls it the Red River, Red River Valley, ect. i think the of the north bit is just used to tell which red river is being talked about —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.17.201.80 (talk) 03:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Map

The map of the Red River is entirely inaccurate. The Red River does NOT start in Fargo and flow north, it starts further south. Someone needs to update this map —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.21.234.190 (talk) 14:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If you look closely at the map, you can see that the river starts south of Fargo, and the location where the shading begins is in fact the location of the confluence of its source streams. It is a little confusing given the scale, as the Wild Rice River (shown approaching the border from the west) does not join the Red at its source, but closely parallels it and joins further north. (You may be able to make that out if you look closely.) The Bois de Sioux (a source stream) comes from the south but is the border and therefore is obscured and overwritten by the black line representing the border. The first river shown south of Fargo east of the border is the other source stream, the Otter Tail. The shading identifying the Red starts where the Otter Tail meets the border, which is correct. Kablammo (talk) 15:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Image

Would anyone mind if I exchange the image in the infobox of the page with this one: Red River?   TRBP  talk  19:42, 5 June 2011 (UTC)