Canals in an independent Louisiana?

This one's an interesting thought, and I'm more interested in a certain particular facet of this than anything else that might come up--canals and inland waterways.

I think the starting scenario (not particularly plausible, I admit, and I'm ignoring lots of butterflies and making it deliberately minimalistic) is necessary to lay out here so we can discuss this topic, so let's just say that France for some reason intensely settles Louisiana starting in the mid-17th century. The main competitor to France is Britain, who goes with early Trans-Appalachian settlement and also takes Florida and Mobile to help facilitate that settlement. Spain is a lesser competitor, and most all of Spanish Tejas is conquered and nominally under French rule. But France can never defeat Britain, who by the mid-18th century has expelled as many French as they can (Acadian style) from the east of the Mississippi, leaving the borders at the OTL 1763 borders. The final border change in the east occurs in 1783 when France claims an outlet on Lake Superior at OTL Duluth and surrounding lands in exchange for helping the British colonies gain independence. Louisiana gains independence in 1790 because of some some alternate French Revolution. I'd write more, but let's ignore what happens elsewhere in North America. We'll assume relations with the *United States are cordial and the Mississippi River is effectively internationalised.

So now that we have the setting laid out, let's also assume that Louisiana enjoys a period of canal mania, canal supporters tend to win during internal political debates, and ITTL railroads are delayed by maybe ten years, so we can have a canalwank. Where are these canals likely to be? Is the OTL system of inland waterways west of the Mississippi a good clue as to how the layout would look? But what about ones which don't exist OTL? Can you build a canal linking the Great Lakes and Mississippi watershed with one end at Duluth and the other a town on the Mississippi? It looks like it would be pretty challenging, if its even doable before railroads. The results would mean Louisiana could bypass US control of any Chicago Ship Canal.

The other big one--how far upstream can the Missouri be made reliably navigable? Bismarck? As far as Great Falls?

I'll let your minds run wild. Note that this could apply to the US too, but I think this version of an independent Louisiana or any other state with a similar history is far more likely to embark on these sorts of engineering projects.
 
Oooooh! Other than my knowledge on some things pertaining to NO my knowledge in this area is small, so I leave it to the experts. But very interested!
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I have to wonder how they'd handle the Old River debacle. I suspect it might just be the Achatafalaya as Mississippi outlet by about 1970 or so.
 
Relavent article to this thread I found while browsing earlier. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/...attempted_creation_of_the_port_of_dallas.html

While Dallas developed thanks to the railroad, this could provide impetus for a city like Dallas to become even more prominent early on, although admittedly because of cost issues the Trinity River would only be canalised up to a certain point if Dallas wasn't prominent enough. And the articles states the project was only decisively cancelled thanks to the airport, so that's always something. Since we can assume that part of Texas will still need a regional center, we can assume Louisiana would be interested in navigation on the Trinity River as it would any other Texas River.

?Canals? When you have the whole Mississippi watershed?

What would be the point?

My POD already mentioned the idea of wanting to connect Lake Superior to the Mississippi basin without going through what would be US territory. And there's plenty of other potentials. Connecting the Mississippi and Missouri basins north of St. Louis, perhaps in *Iowa. And there's plenty of internal improvements on the inland rivers in this region which could be done which never were, even though admittedly they lack as much potential as on the East Coast.

The Mississippi will only get you so far. The Missouri is there, but needs lots of maintanence to be navigable (and I'm still wondering, can you engineer the river so you can get to Great Falls reliably?). And I don't know if you could salvage anything out of the Platte or other major rivers.

And then there's things that exist OTL, like the canal that allows Tulsa, Oklahoma to be a major river port. And evidently, at one point Missouri was interested in making the Osage River into an artery of commerce. Now, I'm not sure which other rivers had the potential, but certainly there are plenty of places that need canals and improved navigation.

I have to wonder how they'd handle the Old River debacle. I suspect it might just be the Achatafalaya as Mississippi outlet by about 1970 or so.

Quite possibly, since we'd assume they'd get rid of the Great Raft and alter the river long before the US ever did. The sane way of doing things is to let the Atchafalaya gradually (50 to 100 years) capture the main course using flood controls, and leaving a canal for New Orleans to access the Mississippi. The business community in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, etc. will not like it, but the alternative is nothing short of a disaster which hopefully can be explained to the people as to why these engineers are changing the river. Probably a huge political issue, but as a natural disaster, it can be averted.
 
How many canals have been dug within a watershed, iOTL? Most canals connect different watersheds.

Just to use Ontario examples: the Rideau Canal, the Trent-Severn Waterway, Georgian Bay Canal (ok that one wasn't actually ever built), were all built to connect different parts of the St. Lawrence watershed.

The Mississippi watershed, having greater land area than the st. lawrence, probably has more opportunities for intra-watershed canals.
 

SRBO

Banned
It is possible to build a canal between St. Luis river and the Mississippi but both would require some dredging for any relevant boat to get there

So not too difficult. Maybe they can copy the dutch and try to expand the delta? The sea bed is shallow and there would be land to get
 
It is possible to build a canal between St. Luis river and the Mississippi but both would require some dredging for any relevant boat to get there

So not too difficult. Maybe they can copy the dutch and try to expand the delta? The sea bed is shallow and there would be land to get

Probably a project on tier with the Erie Canal for importance.

Now why would you need more land in the Mississippi River Delta when you have a gigantic amount of land elsewhere to settle?
 
My POD already mentioned the idea of wanting to connect Lake Superior to the Mississippi basin without going through what would be US territory. And there's plenty of other potentials. Connecting the Mississippi and Missouri basins north of St. Louis, perhaps in *Iowa. And there's plenty of internal improvements on the inland rivers in this region which could be done which never were, even though admittedly they lack as much potential as on the East Coast.

I can't see the people of the Louisiana South wanting a canal that goes to Lake Superior, they all of a sudden get no benefit from the trade that flows East instead of South.
 
I can't see the people of the Louisiana South wanting a canal that goes to Lake Superior, they all of a sudden get no benefit from the trade that flows East instead of South.

Now here we get into the shaky political issues of Louisiana, which no doubt will have a north-south divide based on economic reality (a lot like the US, incidentally). I was more wondering if the thing was even feasible in the pre/early railroad era at a non-ridiculous cost.
 
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