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Post by pandemonium on Jul 5, 2010 17:26:47 GMT -6
First, let me tack up this excerpt from Tolkien's draft letter to Peter Hastings (#153, Letters of JRRT, ed. H. Carpenter):
It's that sketchiness which affords delight for a dabbler in fan fiction. A bit of sketchiness I have run up against is river traffic. It's not sketchy at all in The Hobbit where trade between Thranduil's kingdom and the Lakemen offers a vehicle for our hero to escape from Thran's domain and spring his Dwarven pals in the process. Likewise, one sees very active river traffic on the Anduin, at least below the falls of Rauros. But I've been thinking about the Baranduin. It seems pretty quiet during the late Third Age other than some hobbits messing about in boats up by Buckland. But what about the immediate post-dunking-of-Númenór Second Age, when Elendil built his great city, Annúminas? The city was on the shores of Lake Evendim, which is also the source of the Baranduin.
So I am wondering about river traffic on the Baranduin. Elendil has set up his city near a source of water. Does the city exploit the river for trade or does it rely primarily on overland trade routes?
Sarn Ford puts something of a glitch in the idea of the Baranduin as a "water road" to Annúminas. That's the ford of the Baranduin south of the Old Forest and where Strider met Gandalf on May 1 before the hobbits set out that fall from the Shire. It's also where the Dark Muse's forces had their asses handed to them by the Númenórean-Elvish alliance around 1700 of the Second Age. So that ford has been there for a while, and seems to me that it would be an obstruction to river traffic. But maybe the Baranduin below the ford allowed more extensive travel and trade. Maybe there was some sort of portage around it? ETA: or a canal with locks of some sort?
Anyway, just how Annúminas might have relied on the Baranduin is one of those sketchy things. So what kind of boats and barges do you imagine might have plied the rivers, including the Baranduin, of Middle-earth?
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Post by erulisse on Jul 6, 2010 5:00:35 GMT -6
Historically and pre-historically, settlements were made on waterways because water offered an easier road to travel than overland often did. I can see any settlement on water using at least minimal water transport - from coracles to canoes, rafts to barges. Overland roads had to be cleared and maintained to transport goods. Simple game trails were too narrow and often too geographically challenging to allow serious transport of hard goods from one area to another. The rivers and streams provided that transport. If portages were needed then smaller vessels would be used. If no portage was required, larger vessels could be used. Ferries were also used extensively - both rope and tow styles.
As for the specifics of your question - the type of vessel(s) would be determined by the draft of the water and the goods for transport. Also consider the method of movement. Would the vessel be moved by wind as in a sail boat? Would it be poled? Or would oars be used? Each type of locomotion requires a different design of boat.
I hope I have helped a little bit :-)
- Erulisse (one L)
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sanna
Councillor
Eternal Bosom of Hot Love
Posts: 189
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Post by sanna on Jul 6, 2010 9:24:28 GMT -6
I agree with Erulisse, it would have to be a city full of very silly inhabitants indeed if they were to overlook such a cost effective method of transport as a river.
Horses and oxen can haul only so much, and need a lot of (expensive) maintenance and plenty of human labourers as well, a river boat of any shape can carry a lot more cargo and can be operated with relatively low employment costs compared to overland routes.
Then there's stuff like timber, for which the only sensible way of getting it from point A to point B is to use the waterways. You don't even need a boat, except to make sure the logs go all in the right direction when crossing a lake.
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Post by kymahalei on Jul 6, 2010 20:34:54 GMT -6
As for the specifics of your question - the type of vessel(s) would be determined by the draft of the water and the goods for transport. Also consider the method of movement. Would the vessel be moved by wind as in a sail boat? Would it be poled? Or would oars be used? Each type of locomotion requires a different design of boat. For some reason I'm reminded of the barges on the Erie Canal that were pulled by mules. It was pretty flat water, so you couldn't float anything with a deep draft. A river shallow enough to have fords might tolerate this kind of locomotion.
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Post by erulisse on Jul 7, 2010 5:20:00 GMT -6
For some reason I'm reminded of the barges on the Erie Canal that were pulled by mules. It was pretty flat water, so you couldn't float anything with a deep draft. A river shallow enough to have fords might tolerate this kind of locomotion. Well, I come from the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" (actually we have more than 10,000, but who's bragging : so boats of all types are quite common here. I like boats of all kinds, although they have a tendency to fling me into whatever body of water I am attempting to traverse. Boats can be made from a wide variety of materials, in many different styles, and can be maneuvered using many different methods. They are very flexible. To think that any civilization on a waterway would not utilize that water as a thoroughfare for trade and communication makes no sense. The amount of utilization is the only question. - Erulisse (one L)
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Post by pandemonium on Jul 7, 2010 6:04:42 GMT -6
Drive-by post of thanks for the replies, ladies! I'll be back anon. Day job, looming relocation stuff and last minute preventative medicine things (routine DEXA scan -- welcome to menopause -- and mammogram) all vie for my attention today. Darn it.
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Post by pandemonium on Jul 8, 2010 5:28:27 GMT -6
All righty back again. Thank you all for confirming what I suspected (I am no historian but I dabble): that waterways afforded the best means of transport during the time preceding the Industrial Age and that this is a logical extrapolation to Middle-earth. Annúminas thus seems well-situated with Lake Evendim as a source of water and food (fish) for the city and also at the source of the Baranduin. I wonder if the Númenóreans might have dredged parts of the upper reaches of the river? They were purportedly (and canonically) very capable engineers. It's that darned Sarn Ford that buggers things up in my mind although I suppose a flat-bottomed boat with low displacement might work when the water levels were higher. I did some digging around and found this interesting thread in the LJ community "Filling in the Corners": Another geography question. In the course of the discussion, which is really interesting IMO, the writer came up with the idea of a canal around Sarn Ford. Now her aim was a means for Merry and Pippin to take a boat past Sarn Ford, but when I read it, I immediately thought of Elendil's engineers digging out a canal that might have even had locks! Call it a technological gap-filler. Oh, yes, you definitely did, E! As has everyone else. IIRC, there were sailing barges on rivers. I'm pretty sure there's evidence for ancient sailing boats on the Indus (although that is a bigger river with a larger watershed than the fictional Brandywine. So sails and oars might be used for going upstream? I can easily imagine poles being used. And mules or oxen along a fictional canal. I like to think of hobbitry in coracles for recreational boating for some reason. Anyway, this all sprang to mind as I am about ready to take Sám down the Baranduin on the way to the sea. I'm tapping a bit into my own "river rat" knowledge (years of vacationing and boating Brandybuck-like on the Rock River in N. Illinois and then rowing a la Fëanor's oarsmen on the Charles ) as far as a river and its nature are concerned, but my knowledge of historical river craft is that of a dilettante. That is to say, sketchy.
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Post by russandol on Jul 8, 2010 6:36:39 GMT -6
If nothing else, the Númenóreans would not waste a great opportunity to get their feet wet. Homesickness and all that... What would they do with all their sailing lore otherwise?
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Post by randy on Jul 8, 2010 10:42:55 GMT -6
*nods* I was about to do some research on the upper and lower Dells of the Wisconsin River, and just when they put in that dam. As I'm sure you know, the Wisconsin was used to transport lumber and other things.
I've always used a portage path down the falls on both the Anduin and the Celduin in my stories. But around a minor inconvenience like a ford, I can see the existence of a canal with locks in the days of the Numenoreans that was eventually abandoned and allowed to fill in over the subsequent Age.
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Post by pandemonium on Jul 8, 2010 11:03:38 GMT -6
If nothing else, the Númenóreans would not waste a great opportunity to get their feet wet. Homesickness and all that... What would they do with all their sailing lore otherwise? It's regatta time!
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Post by pandemonium on Jul 8, 2010 11:23:18 GMT -6
*nods* I was about to do some research on the upper and lower Dells of the Wisconsin River, and just when they put in that dam. As I'm sure you know, the Wisconsin was used to transport lumber and other things. Oh, yes! I have fond memories of the Dells! Gorgeous area. Here's a photo so others can see part of the river that Randy mentions: Makes a lot of sense to me. Excellent point! Sections of the Delaware Canal (Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River) no longer hold water (unless it floods) and are "returning to the land" and that is happening in a span which is a fraction of the time between the early to mid-Third Age. I'm thinking that Sám, Elerína and the rest of their party will ride to Sarn Ford, where 2 of the 3 Sindarin guys will go on to Lindon while the others catch a boat down to my non-canon haven, Gaillond not far from the mouth of the Baranduin (opposite shore from Lindon). So they may be near the southern end of the fictitious canal. The crew of the boat will have passed through it already. With regard to boats, an image of something like a keelboat springs to mind. That looks like a vessel that would appeal to the Númenórean exiles, and it can travel both upstream and downstream.
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Post by randy on Jul 8, 2010 13:20:19 GMT -6
Is that the Upper or Upper Lower Dells? One thing that impressed me is how they have insisted that no buildings can be seen from those stretches of river -- even though there are definitely houses and hotels back there in those trees.
As for the rest of it -- it's like Las Vegas or Gatlinburg. You wanna buy a genuine rubber tomahawk made in Taiwan? You've come to the right place! LOL
Edited, because I'm an idiot. ;D
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