03 Liquid History + St. Lawrence

Matt Price

Created: 2018-09-28 Fri 09:55

I have seen the Mississippi. That is muddy water. I have seen the St Lawrence. That is crystal water. But the Thames is liquid history.

Rivers and Movement

  • easy path between distant lands
  • exploration: settlement of Britain; Cartier; Champlain; Lewis & Clark; etc.

Toronto Passage

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  • canoe route from Lake Simcoe to Lake Ontario
  • portage trail back up the other way
  • facilitated movement across this substantial distance
  • also route of attack & escape during conflict

Trade

  • travel by boat much easier, less energetic, often much less dangerous than by land
    • cf.
  • direct floating of timber down rivers!

Rivers as Barriers

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Divisions

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Pause

Engines of “Civilizations”

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  • “exotic” rivers in arid climates
  • fertility of alluvial (deposited) soil
  • irrigation and complexity

Anthropocenes

  • 40,000 YA: Fire
  • 7,500 YA: Agriculture
  • 5,500 YA: States
  • 250 YA: Steam Engines
  • 50 YA: Measurable Carbon-driven Climate Change
  • 30 YA: Genetic Engieering

Rivers and the Origins of States in Mesopotamia

  • “sedentism” begins 10,000 YA in Mesopotamia, agriculture fairly widespread by 5,500 BCE
  • “states” arise only ~3,300 BCE
  • why the gap?

Farming is Hard Work

  • traditional explanation: farming is a stable calorie source in an unstable world
  • looks like a bad deal in Mesopotamia, though!

But once you have grains

  • you can have tax collectors
  • you can hoard surplus
  • you can grow armies
  • you can take slaves
  • you can assert kinship-independent hierarchies

Impacts of the State

  • large-scale organization
  • long chains of hierarchy
  • concentrations of surplus → cultural & scientific works
  • eventually, industrial production (which needs something like a state)
  • anthropogenic climate change

Cultures around the Harvest!

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St. Lawrence

The Champlain Sea

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The St. Lawrence System

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What’s special about the St. Lawrence?

  • 2nd largest flow in NA: 16800 m3/s (7400 m3/s from Lake O)
  • b/c of lakes, water is clearer
  • supports millions of people
  • very highly regulated (like many other rivers)
  • lots of “anadromous” and at least one important “catadromous” species

Upper “fluvial” region

  • no tidal effets
  • large impacts of lakes
  • largest number of hydro-electric projects
  • most significant dredging

How has settler socety affected the basin?

  • removal of beavers
  • deforestation
  • industrial point-source pollution
  • agricultural run-off
  • urbanization, asphault, and dispersed pollutant sources
  • Dams!

American Eel

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  • “catadromous”
  • 1980: 25,000/day
  • 2000: 250/day
  • 50% of early c20 biomass in Lake O. Active fishery

Zebra Mussel

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  • native to Russia, Ukraine
  • entered St. Lawrence in 1980’s in ballast
  • filtration of water → light penetration → algal blooms

Ottawa River

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  • origins in Canadian Shield (granitic, hard rock)
  • discharge of 1950m3/s
  • many threatened fish species
  • histories of E. Coli and PCB

Trip Stuff