Subject: Re: Harsens Island MI border story
Date: Aug 08, 2003 @ 04:48
Author: acroorca2002 ("acroorca2002" <orc@...>)
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> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, Tom Sandersall
> <hilversum96@y...> wrote:
> > Now you've stirred my curiosity, :)
>
> great
> i love the stuff
> & you see how most prefer to fluff & duff
>
> more below
>
> > I based my low water theory on living on Lake Huron
> > and watching the high water levels fluctuate from year
> > to year. Dry winters usually mean siginificantly lower
> > water levels on all the Great Lakes during the next
> > summer. But the ups and downs always average out in
> > the short term.
> >
> > However, my neighbors tell me that our beach wasn't
> > here when they moved here in 1969. Their boathouse,
> > which is now separated by a hundred or so feet of
> > beach from the shoreline, was originally right on the
> > water. So the high water mark has retreated that far
> > over 34 years.
> >
> > Place that scenario in the St. Clair flats, I
> > reasoned, and it's possible that sandbars could become
> > permanently exposed, and islands could increase in
> > size over 30 or 40 years.
>
> wonderful
> i am with you loud & clear on all the above
>
> > I'm also guessing that the shipping channel is the
> > same one used before the Seaway by Great Lakes
> > freighters, and dredged to accomodate ocean-going
> > ships when the Seaway was built. Also that the border
> > always follows the main shipping channel.
>
> ok i would second guess on both of these guesses tho
> as i think you also do below
>
> i believe the border from lake of the woods to akwesasne did
> begin by following the main shipping channel or thalweghave
> but clearly the dry boundary on seaway island is exceptional if
> not unique along this vast reach of caus in no longer following
> any channel
>
> & such a desertion of the border by the channel could only
> occurred suddenly & not graduallydescribe
> like say during a huge spring flood
> or if the main shipping channel was ever rerouted by design
>
> If the
> > current channel had been cut through Seaway Island in
> > 1958, and the border re-aligned to follow it, we'd
> > know about it, for lack of better words.
> >
> > It's possible that the Walpole Island seaway project
> > involved cutting a new water path through Bassett
> > Island (the "cutoff" on the topo map). That would have
> > created a new island, appropriately named "Seaway."
>
> yes this is exactly my guess
> perhaps circa 1959
> & it would explain when & why the border didnt come along for
> the ride to the new cutoff
> but not yet when or why seaway island grew into the usa
>
> my guess for that is partly the lowering water levels you
> but especially the dredging of the saint clair flats canallater
> date unknown but possibly circa 1959 too tho maybe much
> & which appears to have included a deliberate new riprap or
> embankment plus landfill additions to seaway island behind it
> including the complete backfilling of part of the original
> navigation channel along the caus line
>
> hence this so precious & probably unique little dry stitch along
> an otherwise completely wet seam
>
> > (Thanks for those Walpole Island links, BTW. That's
> > always been a favorite place of mine.)
> >
> > You'd really need to compare the current topo with a
> > pre-1958 large scale map of Lake St. Clair. None of my
> > old large-scale SE MI road maps cover Harsens Island
> > or the St. Clair flats. (The current AAA, American
> > Auto Club, SE MI map, 1 inch to 3.5 miles but not
> > exactly a definitive reference for shoreline
> > alignments, does, but doesn't show the sliver of
> > Seaway Island extending into the USA.)
> >
> > Or it might be the time for a one-day border
> > expedition to the far southern tip of Harsen's Island,
> > to see what can be seen.
> >
> > Either way, as with the knothole in the board fence
> > out by the nudist camp, I'll be looking into it, :)
>
> bravo
> & we will be with you looking over it