Accidental Geography

Traveling north to Superior along Highway 53 one can catch a sign that you are crossing part of the Continental Divide, which is you have moved from one drainage basin to another--on a continental scale. In this case, water on one side runs to the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, while water on the other side runs into the Lake Superior, and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean.  Of course, there is also THE Continental Divide which splits the nation between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean watersheds.  Each watershed is made up of a number of smaller watersheds.  For example, part of Sun Prairie is in the Koshkonong Creek watershed, which is part of the Rock River watershed, and eventually to the Mississippi River watershed, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  A lonely drop from Sun Prairie co-mingles with water from the far reaches of the large Mississippi River watershed.  The Mississippi River watershed is the fourth largest in the world.

  

Major Watersheds in North America

Major streams are denoted on the Wisconsin State Highway map.  Following each stream you can see its point of confluence with another stream, and its farthest reach; using basic knowledge you will be able to ascertain the general direction of stream flow and into which basin the water flows—Mississippi River, Lake Michigan-Green Bay, or Lake Superior.  One of my earliest lessons in a physical geography course was looking at a topographic map and delineating watersheds.  Often, two different watersheds have navigable waters that come near each other.  The City of Portage, WI is so named as it is short walk between two different rivers serving two different watersheds.  To the north-easterly side of Portage is the Fox River which eventually enters Green Bay, after a journey through such great  and well-known communities as Berlin, and Omro.  The remaining area around Portage is the Wisconsin River, and part of its watershed, which flows to the Mississippi River.  The first European settler to arrive at this location and discern its unique nature, as being between two different watersheds, was Jesuit explorer Fr. Jacques Marquette and his traveling companion Louis Joliet.  In 1673 they had found the route they were searching for—a  primarily water route to the Mississippi River. It only required a short portage between the Fox and the Wisconsin.

General Location of the Niagara Escarpment

Physical geography is formed by actions of climate and weather, and various geological forces, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, folding or faulting.  Much of Wisconsin was subject to various glacial activities over 10,000 years ago.  But, not all of Wisconsin was affected by the large ice sheets, with the last ice sheet being known as the Wisconsin Glacier.  We have the driftless region which occupies southwestern Wisconsin.  We know this by simply looking at the terrain of the glacial area which lacks the ridges and valleys of the driftless region.  Often hills in the glacial region are related more to glacial features such as moraines, kames, drumlins, eskers and kettles.  Glacial valleys are U shaped, stream valleys are V shaped.  The glacier formed a unique topography.  One of the largest drumlin fields in the world is between Sun Prairie and Beaver Dam.  Holy Hill, in Washington County, is a unique feature as it is a kame located on the pre-glacial Niagara escarpment.  This is the same escarpment that forms the eastern edge of Lake Winnebago, arcs north to form the land area between Green Bay and Lake Michigan (Door peninsula)  and continues an arc north and then south east to Lake Ontario, and Niagara Falls. 

Holy Hill, Hubertus, WI 

The world, however, is made up of unique natural features, of which Holy Hill is only one, and while significant to Wisconsin, would be an afterthought within the nation.  One unique feature is an accident of geography.  It is a stream that would be a politician’s dream.  The head waters of this stream is a small lake in  northwest Wyoming, and when that water outfalls into a small creek, a drop does not know if it is bound for the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, or the Pacific Ocean.  This creek is in the Teton Wilderness and is known, quite appropriately as Two Ocean Creek.  Discovery, at least as far as European settlers go, was in 1835 by Osborne Russell.  Not recorded (as far as I know), but quite likely, is that tribes indigenous to the area knew of its unique nature.  Its headwaters is not unique, a small lake forming the headwaters of a stream is rather common.  Two Ocean Creek becomes unique as it heads southerly and reaches an area known as Two Ocean Pass, which became a National Natural Landmark in 1965.  This small creek divides at a specific location known as Parting of the Waters, which one anal observer noted is .4 miles northwest of the low point of Two Ocean Pass.  You can likely guess from the name what happens.  A freak of nature, a gift from God, the intractability of forces that form our landscape, or an accident of geography, this stream splits into two streams, which itself is not unusual, but what is unique is that water in one stream is in the Pacific basin, and water in the other is in the Atlantic basin.  The two creeks formed by the split are known as Pacific Creek and Atlantic Creek.  There is a hole, so to speak, in the Continental Divide and as water splashes against a not so easily discernable ridge of the Continental Divide the way the splash droplets end will tell if the drop of water will be going to the Pacific or Atlantic. It is said that the water in Two Ocean Creek is more or less equally distributed between these two major watersheds. 

Estimated Two Ocean Creek Watershed, Wyoming

When we hear about the Continental Divide, we usually think of the tops of mountain ranges with a discernable split, and a discernable water travel pattern.  But, nature and geography always have a gift in store for us.  A drop of rain that falls in the Two Ocean Creek drainage basin has an equal chance of being swum in by the great whales of the northwest or by the sharks of the Gulf of Mexico.  Or a less ignoble, but just as important, is that the drop may be evaporated, form as part of cloud and eventually fall back to earth as rain.  But in between is a journey that defines not only importance of the water cycle to life on earth, but also recounts a journey that represents the history of the nation. 

Split of Two Ocean Creek into Atlantic Creek and Pacific Creek

Atlantic Creek will travel 3,488 miles becoming part of the Yellowstone, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers, and end up in the Gulf of Mexico, which is part of the Atlantic.  Pacific Creek will feed into the Snake and Columbia Rivers before entering the Pacific Ocean.  Water actually covers the Continental Divide at Parting of the Waters, such that a fish could swim between the two the world’s major water bodies.  In fact, it is thought that this pass allowed the Yellowstone cutthroat trout to migrate from the Snake River (Pacific basin) to the Yellowstone River (Atlantic basin).  It was 110 years ago this coming month that the Lewis and Clark expedition began their exploration of territory gained from the Louisiana Purchase, and into the Oregon territory to the Pacific.  One goal was to find a water route to the Pacific.  They never found it, but if they had been in Wyoming, perhaps they would have.

Natural beauty is present in the earth, whether it is an unnamed creek that starts from a spring, the Wisconsin River, Holy Hill, or the magnificence of the Niagara Falls, and little recognized Two Ocean Creek.  Although this comes a week past earth day, we should think of every day as earth day, and be respectful of the natural resources and beauty provided for wise use and enjoyment. 

Note:  All images courtesy of Google Images