Holston River ( #AtoZChallenge )

 No river exists by itself.  A river has a source and an end.   All rivers are somehow connected with other waters...

Holston River

       The Holston River in Virginia and Tennessee starts with three rivers--the North, the Middle, and the South Forks of the Holston River and they all converge to become the Holston River.  When this united river reaches the outskirts of Knoxville it joins that racy sounding French Broad River to become the larger Tennessee River which winds its way for another 652 miles before joining up with the Ohio River in Paducah Kentucky.  Talk about a long circuitous journey!

        The Holston and its Forks are rivers that I've often followed or crossed in my trips up into Virginia.  The Middle Fork runs through the lovely town of Marion Virginia which is a place that I have dreamed of settling down except my wife has no interest in it.  So I guess that leaves me with a decision between my wife and my dream town.  I keep hoping my wife might change her mind on this idea someday.  Guess I'll have to just keep dreaming because I can't see my wife leaving California anytime soon.  Ah, the things we do for love.

        Originally the Holston River was called the Cherokee River before someone decided to honor the settler Stephen Holstein who had built a cabin along the river in 1746.  The name honoring the indigenous peoples who had lived there before Holstein seems more fitting since so many other rivers were given names that were somehow related to those who had lived in the land before the Europeans came.

       The more well-known Hudson River in New York had a similar name change to honor the European explores rather than use the preexisting indigenous names.  The Hudson river has a far greater fame than the Holston primarily because of its proximity to New York City.  Like the East River, the part of the Hudson that joins the ocean is an estuary.  Those waters fluctuate with the tides.

         When I saw the fifties monster movie The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) I became fascinated with the Hudson River.  In this film, the Beast is roused from its "hibernation" in the Arctic and makes its way toward the Hudson Canyon, a deep ocean abyss off shore from the Hudson River Estuary.  I was inspired to look up information about this canyon because I thought maybe the movie made this canyon up.  Sure enough though, there is a 400 mile long underwater canyon that is comparable to the mighty Grand Canyon.  Deep and large enough to hide any number of gigantic prehistoric monsters if they existed, or more likely, to act as a catch basin for tons of New York City garbage from a few hundred years.

          Who knows what they could find in that Hudson Canyon.  Probably not monsters, but then again it might be something worse.

          What do you think one might find in the Hudson River Canyon?  Have you ever traced on a map a waterway from it's mouth to its ultimate source or sources?   Do you think most rivers should carry their original names give to them by the  peoples who lived on the land before European settlers arrived?