A continental divide that runs through a valley

Now that’s pathological.

Parts of the Upper Midwest are disappearing under spring floods. The Red River of the North is at major flood stage, again, and the Minnesota River flood crest is moving downstream. It’s a pretty frequent occurrence in both of these river systems, and in part, flooding is a legacy of the glacial history of the area. The Red River flows to the north along the lake bed of Glacial Lake Agassiz, which is pathologically flat. The Minnesota River flows to the south along the channel of the Glacial River Warren, which was gouged out of the landscape by water draining from Lake Agassiz.

14,000 years ago there was direct connection between what is now the Red River basin and the Minnesota River basin. Today, there’s a continental divide – with the Red flowing toward Hudson Bay and the Minnesota flowing toward the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico. But what a strange continental divide it is – for it runs through the former outlet of Lake Agassiz, in what is now known as Brown’s Valley or the Traverse Gap. This divide is not so much a high point in the landscape, but a just-not-quite-as-low area. The little community of Brown’s Valley sits between Lake Traverse (flows to the North, forming the headwaters of the Red) and Big Stone Lake (flows to the south, forming the headwaters of the Minnesota).

Here’s what it looks like on Google Earth. Note that I’ve set the terrain to 3x vertical exaggeration, so that you have some hope of seeing the subtle topography of this area.

And here’s a very, very cool oblique photo from Wikipedia. It shows the divide looking from north to south — mostly covered by floodwaters in 2007. It’s not every day you get to see a continental divide covered in water.