Floods

I grew up in the Red River Valley of the North, that part of Minnesota and North Dakota that is about 200 miles long and 50 miles wide. The valley itself is actually the bottom of prehistoric Lake Agassiz, the remnant of which is Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. The river actually flows north (hence the name of this blog, by the way, "Run North ...") The land is so flat, the drop per miles is only inches, and the southern valley thaws before the northern valley, so there are floods. The water spreads like a blanket, seeping east and west, dissolving snow like sugar, lapping at the top of dikes.

The most recent record flood was in 2009, but the big deal flood was in 1997, when downtown Grand Forks, North Dakota was inundated. Local newspaper, The Grand Forks Herald, kept reporting from their downtown office and produced a paper daily until the building caught fire. After the waters receded they published a book called "Come Hell and High Water" because, of course, they had had their fill of both.

What I remember of flooding is primarily the one in 1978, when the junior and senior boys were released from school to help sandbag around the Two Rivers, as well as at family farms closer to the Red. We lived about four miles from the River, but I could see the water half a mile away from my west-facing bedroom window. To me, Spring thaw and flooding was a novelty that was occasion to drag the old row boat out of the garage, make sure it didn't leak too much, and then set out across the coulie just across the driveway. It wasn't really flood water; it was just full of snow melt that was waiting for the still frozen ground to give in. I regarded it as a terrific occasion to goof off in a boat.