The Red River of the North and The Red River Valley

The Red River of the North has always been a river of mystery to the thousands that have heard the name. It gets its name from the Red Lake of Minnesota whose shore have been stained by the blood of many an Indian War.

Ages ago, a greater Gulf of Mexico extended far inland, not once but many times, far into Northern Canada, covering a large area of west central North America.

The blue clay encountered under the many feet of yellow clay has yielded snail shells, pieces of petrified wood and chunks of coal. (lignite) the yellow clay is a glacial deposit, carried in after the inland sea receded. So far the yellow clay has yielded nothing of historical value in the Red River Valley. he more or less eighteen inches of gray colored clay and gravel (sometimes called hard-pan) was a later glacial deposit. It does not cover all of the valley, and it varies in thickness. The rich top loam was formed by natural causes: river flow, decay, sediment deposits during river flood stages and erosion. The present Red River Valley must have been many feet deeper than it is today and quite some feet below present sea level. Other than the Nile Valley, there is no other place on this planet as level and of such rich soil.

Millions of years ago, the North part of North America was tropical. Then came the ice age with its four known glaciers that advanced well into what is now known as the United States, covering the lush vegetation, forming coal beds, gas and oil.

The burning of North Dakota lignite beds which formed the Badlands must have happened ages after the tropical and Ice Age periods and millions of years after the Earth had cooled. There are no indications of volcanic action in North Dakota. There are lava deposits on Minnesota, but there are no craters in either state, leading us to believe that craters, if any, were completely leveled during the Great Ice Age. Was there some sort of eruption in North Dakota, or were the lignite beds ignited after the North American continent was inhabited? The last glacier to invade North Dakota occurred between 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, covering about three-quarters of what is now North Dakota.

The leveling process of glaciers, Lake Agassiz, and erosion must have been enormous

February 17, 1959