thanx for doubling back
this entire adventure has been a pleasure & an education for me
& i did say i would be peeking in with you
so let me just add
i would agree the great bulk of seaway island was once natural
delta land
& that it was cut off by the saint clair cutoff in recent decades from
a once greater but thereby reduced bassett island
& that seaway island is for this reason alone not a natural island
whatever accretions or other additions may have at any time
accrued to it from whatever causes
but almost all of it was & is natural land that was part of a natural
island
& we have no evidence of any artifice applied to seaway island
per se
except perhaps a bit on the american side due to the flats canal
so it seems to me well unnatural to think of seaway island as an
artificial anything
--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "hilversum96"
<hilversum96@y...> wrote:
> At the Tall Ships Sarnia festival last weekend, I spotted a St.
Clair
> River chart on one of the Great Lakes cruise ships. I asked one
of
> the crew members if he knew anything about Seaway Island.
He
> confirmed that the CAUS border does run through the island,
and that
> low water has exposed more land and made the island "grow"
across the
> boundary line.
>
> And he confirmed that the seaway project of 1958 involved
cutting and
> dredging a shipping channel (the St. Clair Cutoff, between
Seaway and
> Bassett Islands, named on the Algonac MI quad,) to shorten
and
> straighten ships' path through the flats.
>
> http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=42.5401&lon=-
> 82.6126&s=100&layer=DRG25&size=m&u=0
>
> So, at this point in the St. Clair River, the shipping channel
does
> not follow the international boundary.
>
> I remembered to ask if Seaway Island was natural. He said it
was. But
> it can't be, if the channel project separated it from Bassett
Island,
> thereby giving the new island its name.
>
> It's obvious, on the 1:50,000 version of the Algonac quad (now
why
> didn't I think to reduce the scale?) that the island is growing
due
> to low water levels, and the St. Clair Cutoff is a newly-dredged
> shipping channel.
>
> On the way back to the US, traffic was backed up on the Blue
Water
> Bridge across its midpoint. For the first time, I noticed two
> boundary markers. A newer one is at mid-span, on the actual
border,
> and there's an older one a few hundred feet into the USA. The
older
> one is corroded, and I couldn't read its text. I did snap a quick
> picture of the newer one as I inched along.
>
> The westbound (into the US) span is the original. In 1997, the
second
> span was opened, and both were made one-way. The newer
bridge carries
> eastbound traffic into CA. From the westbound bridge, I
couldn't see
> if there is a mid-span marker on the eastbound side. That will
be
> something to look for next time.
>
> I'm guessing that the two markers on the westbound side were
placed
> there when pedestrian and bicycle traffic was still allowed on
the
> bridge. Otherwise, no one will ever be able to read them
unless
> there's a backup coming into the US.
>
> And, while I was up there, I took advantage of standing still at
that
> height above average terrain to do some FM DXing. On a
distant
> classic rock station I heard "Back In the USSR." There's a
border-
> related song! I wasn't gone that long, and had a great time in
CA,
> but I remember thinking, gee, it's good to be back home,
almost ...