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Thread: River navigation terminology?

  1. #1
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    Question River navigation terminology?

    I'm writing a Louis and Clark style river adventure and I'm trying to find the best way to lay out my maps. I've been looking at a bunch of maps, but they don't explain a lot of the terminology. Does anyone know of any good sites with information? I'd also to be interested to find something about river mapping before GPS and whatnot.

  2. #2
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    The only slightly obscure thing I know about river terminology is marking twain, since I live in St. Louis and Mark Twain is kind of a big deal here in Missouri. It means checking how deep or shallow the river is by throwing a string over the side that has a weight on the end of it and you take measurements. Other terms such as fork, branch, rivulet, creek, etc could probably be found by a simple search. Look under Tributary on wikipedia, scroll down for a bunch of links and stuff.
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  3. #3
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    Default re: River navigation terminology?

    I'm a canoer, so I know a lot of the basic stuff. But I never learned how to read a river map or anything like that. I'll take a look at that. I'm also from Missouri, actually. XD

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    Administrator waldronate's Avatar
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    The only nautical terms I ever mastered were grounded, foundering, capsized, and sunk.

  5. #5
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    My thinking is that the terms used by a boater would be different to the terms used by a geographer. So while I might be able to tell you the latter, I've no idea if it's what a boater would actually used.
    I am a geology nerd.

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