The recent Twelve Mile Circle journey to western North Carolina included one of my favorite activities, whitewater rafting. The boys were finally old enough to join us although we still kept it pretty easy on them. So we stuck primarily to a series of Class II and Class III rapids (moderate to intermediate). This made a guided rafting adventure on the French Broad River particularly enjoyable and appropriate for our little group (map).
Third Oldest
A distinct reference and claim repeated itself as I searched for a suitable rafting operator. Invariably websites noted that the French Broad River was the third oldest river in the world. It was always the third oldest. Even the National Park Service repeated the claim.
I didn’t have any ability to corroborate or debunk the statement at the time . So I tucked it away in my mind, intending to check on it later. I’ve learned since then that measuring the age of rivers wasn’t an exact science. However, geologists could determine their relative ages in wide general bands based upon various signs and conditions. Determining an exact order would be rather more problematic.
The best that might be said of the French Broad River was that it was really, really old. Maybe it was 300 million years old. I pondered that for a moment. The first dinosaurs evolved during the Mesozoic Era, 225 million years ago. So it was entirely possible, even likely, that the course of the French Broad River predated dinosaurs. Many geologists do believe that possibility. After all, the current flow of the French Broad could exist only if the river predated the Appalachian Mountains. It slices entirely through the range.
So it’s the Mountains
Mountains formed over millions of years in fits and starts. Accordingly, this provides plenty of time for rushing water to preserve the original channel via erosion as the range slowly rises around it. Otherwise — had the river been younger than the mountains — the channel would have formed on one side of the range or the other.
This mountain range surfaced during the Alleghanian orogeny. At that time the Euramerica continent (including modern North America) and the Gondwana continent (including modern Africa) slammed into each other to form the super-continent Pangaea. Orogeny was nothing more than a fancy word meaning, “the process of mountain formation especially by folding of the earth’s crust.“
Thus, geologists could estimate the age of the mountains. Then by extrapolation they could work backwards to estimate the age of the river. Well, they knew the initial collision took place approximately 300 million years ago. So logically they could conclude that the French Broad River must be something older than that.
But What About the Name?
That was about the extent of geology my simple mind could comprehend. I still wondered about the river’s name. I did assume correctly that French Broad had nothing to do with a woman from France.
Instead, English explorers discovered two rivers of comparably broad width situated near each other on opposite sides of the Eastern Continental Divide on the unsettled fringes of the Carolina colonies.
The western river flowed towards the interior of the continent. So it flowed in the general direction of lands claimed by France in the Mississippi watershed. Thus they called it the French Broad River. Its course took it past what later became modern-day Asheville, then northwest through the Appalachian mountains (going past Lover’s Leap) then due west to the current city of Knoxville. There it joined the Tennessee River, onward to the Ohio River and finally into the Mississippi River.
The eastern river was located just outside of modern-day Asheville, directly past the summit of a ridge a few miles to the southeast. It flowed into the Congaree River and then to the Santee River and finally into the Atlantic Ocean. They called it the English Broad River because that’s where the English established their colony. The name shortened later to Broad River, so now there was a French Broad River and a Broad River. I saw the Broad River when we visited Lake Lure during the same trip. I’m lucky to say that I experienced both the Broad and the French Broad Rivers during our outdoor activities.
Was the French Broad River the third oldest river in the world? Well, who knows. It certainly fell within the top tier of ancient rivers.
Completely Unrelated
Hurricane Katrina formed ten years ago today, on August 23, 2005, and hit New Orleans on the 29th. I wrote about some of my family’s experiences previously in Hurricane Katrina: Family Memories 5 Years Later. Well, I can’t believe another five years has passed. Also I can’t believe I’m still writing Twelve Mile Circle.
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