Traverse Gap: A Missed Opportunity?

There is a spot on the Minnesota-South Dakota border where water that flows to opposite shores of North America almost meet. Historically, during times of severe flooding, they actually did. Lake Traverse, on the north side of this spot, is a source of water that flows all the way to the coast in northern Manitoba, where York Factory stood. The Little Minnesota River and Big Stone Lake, on the south side, is a source of water that flows all the way to the coast in southern Louisiana. Less than a mile separates Lake Traverse from the Little Minnesota River, and the distance is even within a valley, not a "height of land" that forms most continental divides.

The Traverse Gap almost connects the Red River (forming the MN-ND border) and the Minnesota River (going from the MN-SD border to the Mississippi River).

Anyone who knows about the Suez Canal, Panama Canal, or even the Chicago and Illinois Canal understands the importance of shortcuts for international shipping. Why, then, was there never a canal built in such an inviting place as the Traverse Gap, which would theoretically make an all-water route between York Factory and New Orleans possible? This was the question that bugged me a couple of years ago.

To make a long story short, the Red River and most of the Minnesota River is not navigable, meaning neither of those rivers are deep and wide enough for ships to sail on. The Minnesota River is navigable for only the lowest part, located entirely within the Twin Cities metropolitan area. As for the Red River, it is not navigable for any part of it within the United States. Canal diggers would not only have to cut through the Traverse Gap; they would also have to dredge and widen hundreds of miles' worth of rivers.

There has historically been another use for crossing continental divides: the fur trade. Back when the fur trade was important to colonial and early American economies, voyageurs would canoe along rivers and lakes to get to destinations thousands of miles apart. Everyone in the fur trade had to know where rivers went and what the shortest distances between different watersheds were. Since they mostly used canoes, many more rivers were navigable to them. Why didn't the fur trade take advantage of the Traverse Gap?

To make a long story short again, voyageurs were content with portaging. Instead of digging canals to row their canoes through, voyageurs simply picked up their canoes and carried them along until they got to the next river. A few miles of portaging was not a problem. There used to be a canoeing route connecting Lake of the Woods to Lake Superior (most of which is actually the Minnesota-Ontario border today). This, too, went across a continental divide, making it possible to travel from Quebec City to York Factory. (Maybe not as impressive as York Factory to New Orleans, but still very far). The portage across that particular divide was even shorter than the Traverse Gap, but there was a much larger portage, the Grand Portage, bypassing a large waterfall before Lake Superior. The Grand Portage is nine times longer than the Traverse Gap. Since no canal was dug for the Grand Portage, voyageurs would have been fine portaging across the Traverse Gap. There were other crossings of continental divides as well which fur traders seemed more interested in using. In North Dakota alone, some would go dozens of miles from the Mouse/Souris River to the Missouri River (roughly from Velva, ND to Stanton, ND). Just after 1800, one fur trader pointed out the portage one could make from the Sheyenne River to the James River, which he thought was just "half a league" but is really 10 kilometers, or 6 miles.

Actually, there is in fact a canal crossing the north-south continental divide in North America, but it connects two rivers that are unnavigable at those points: the Missouri River and the Sheyenne River. I speak of the McClusky Canal, which was built not for commerce but for irrigation. Nonetheless, I challenge any very adventurous and experienced canoeists to row from York Factory to the mouth of the Mississippi River, using the McClusky Canal to cross the continental divide. Better yet, go all the way back, like a voyageur or any river explorer would have done.