A River Runs Through It

 

Mississinewa, Salamonie, Eel, Tippecanoe, Vermillion, Sugar, Big Raccoon; further downstream the Embarras, White, Patoka, and Little Wabash: these are the major tributaries to the Wabash River, before she flows into the Ohio. Her channel defines Indiana's southwestern border and her watershed covers most of the state. No wonder On the Banks of the Wabash is the Indiana state song:

Round my Indiana homestead wave the cornfields,
In the distance loom the woodlands clear and cool.
Oftentimes my thoughts revert to scenes of childhood,
Where I first received my lessons, nature's school...

Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of newmown hay.
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.

I hadn't realized that all these rivers are one, I just enjoyed crossing them, upstream or down. In the far southwest the valley is so wide you don't even know that you're in one, but upriver the gentle hills along the watercourse are extraordinarily picturesque, like being inside a Currier and Ives print from yesterday. I became interested because when going through Logansport on IN 25 you cross the Wabash twice, or so I thought. I looked at the map and realized that you only cross the Wabash once and then cross the Eel just upstream of their confluence. Looking further I saw how all these little rivers flow together. I wanted to tell you how pretty they are so I did a little research which proved quite interesting.

Rivers; who can tell which is which? According to Wikipedia the early French maps had the Ohio as a tributary to the Wabash. It was a trade route thing. I thought the same thing when I looked at a map of Pittsburgh. “The Allegheny should be the Ohio.” It extends way further at divided highway status on the map while what is labeled the Ohio takes a tight turn and dies. But who am I?

When driving I like the signs that tell me what body of water I'm passing over. Crossing the NY Southern Tier on Interstate 86 one traverses the Seneca Nation. Bridges over the Allegheny there have signs that read Ohi? Yo. So I was right after all. (the question mark stands in for a glottal stop, which I couldn't find a code for)

The Wabash is a blessing to Indiana, hard won, apparently. Illinois and Ohio, her immediate neighbors, have beautiful rivers of their own, but not with such an articulated system. They are mostly flat, broken only periodically, while Indiana is graced with extensive gentle hills, covered in hardwood, even in the glacial north of the state. Again according to Wikipedia the Wabash Valley was created when a massive proto Lake Erie (Lake Maumee), filled with glacial melt broke through a pile of rocks that Papa Glacier had shoved there. Cataclysm (the Maumee Torrent)! And hence our serene valley.

And it is pretty. The Wabash Valley is a blessing to me, that's for sure. I can even take a moments rest from the stress of driving in the snow to appreciate how lovely the hills are covered in white. Yes, Indian Summer was long but winter has hit with a vengeance, and shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. I'm sure I'll tell you more about that later.