Below Saguenay, at the head of navigation, the valley is virtually a fjord through which the river, without shoals or obstructions (average depth, about 800 feet [245 metres]), continues between precipitous cliffs, which culminate in the majestic capes Trinity and Eternity, more than 1,600 feet (490 metres) high.
Profile Crestview's name was chosen because of its location on the peak of a long woodland range between the Yellow and Shoal rivers which flow almost parallel on the east and west side of the city.
Drifting downriver, Bingham's happy-go-lucky crew pays little mind to their surroundings: nothing in this painting hints at the potential dangers of river life shifting sandbars and shoals, flash flooding, submerged trees, injuries and diseases, or scheming pirates.
Over the past 15+ years, dredge material from the Atchafalaya River was strategically placed up-river of a small, natural shoal, located mid-channel, resulting in the creation of a wetland exhibiting many structural characteristics of the naturally occurring riverine wetlands within the basin.
During the winter, shiners may migrate from their shoals in main river channels to smaller tributary streams.
The first sign is a shoal of boto, pink river dolphin that slide their gleaming dorsal fins out of the water just long enough to emit a splutter of exhalation before disappearing.
Three years of drought have reduced the river's flow to the extent that shoals have appeared.
In villages the length of the river, church bells tolled in mourning as shoals of dead fish floated on the surface.
Although past engineering modifications have reduced sediment aggradation in the Mississippi channel, structural solutions to continuing shoaling can adversely impact the river's ecology, flood response, or hydrological function, and many structural solutions appear to be approaching their effective limits.
The federal government was trying to open the trade to outsiders, but the court found that growing up on the river and learning from fathers and uncles every shoal and current was a skill that couldn't be acquired easily without that background.
