[alancarp]

We have Coast Guard in Fargo??? Ummm hmmmm.

[dblshot]

Navigable waters

[Paladin2]

Minnesota is kind of a foreign country. Al Franken could easily pass as an alien.

[Vigilanteman]

I grew up not far from this river. A century or so ago, the river was navigable from its origin at Lake Traverse (South Dakota/Minnesota border), all the way to Winnipeg.

Then, sometime in the 1930's, it was felt that government projects were needed to tame the local rivers and control flooding, the flooding of which has actually worse since. North Dakota acquired a few acres on the Minnesota side when the river was straightened. It took an act of congress to ratify the new state boundaries.

Still, it isn't a bad river to canoe on, if you pick a time other than flood season. The Sheyenne, one of the Red's tributaries, is actually a superb river for canoeing until you get to Kindred, N.D., where the prevailing soil turns entirely from the light sandy color of central North Dakota to the black Red River Valley gumbo.

You can even safely canoe over the dams at Fargo if the river isn't too high because the current is normally gentle. There is a short portage when the water is too low.

One celebrated case which happened when I lived there is a guy who staged his own drowning. They could never find a body, so declared him dead two years later. When he was found working in a small Minnesota town not far from the river a year or so after that, he was in a heap of trouble. If he'd had the sense to move far away, he would have probably gotten away with it.