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drunkenknight9 t1_j13mtnj wrote

Reply to comment by icmonkey123 in When this bridge in Fort Benton, Montana, USA was built 1888 it was required to have a swing span to allow steamboats to navigate. It was considered the furthest navigable point on Earth, more than 2,700 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. by triviafrenzy

Yes. There seems to be a lot of confusion here about what this means so I'll try to clarify. This is the furthest boat trip you can take along natural waterways from the ocean to a point inland without crossing land or using a canal. Taking a boat all the way from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi, up the Missouri, and into Montana is a very far boat ride. You cannot do this further anywhere else on Earth without using a canal or taking your boat over land. I honestly didn't think this was such a confusing concept but apparently people think it is.

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CaptainKickAss3 t1_j144yme wrote

I love how people on Reddit have to tell other people how dumb they are when they explain something.

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platitood t1_j15jhsm wrote

“I understood this, and I’m honestly not that smart, so if I have to explain to you, you’re a dunce.”

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carmium t1_j15pyk4 wrote

When you say farthest navigable point, and don't say from what, or into what, the statement remains confusing. It's an impressive factoid to post, but just needed to be expanded upon for half a sentence.

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Initial_E t1_j13xtmx wrote

I still don’t get it. What makes a canal different from other bodies of water, and why would the furthest point you can go be a bridge that is already designed to let you go further?

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peteroh9 t1_j141bpy wrote

Canals are manmade and it's just worded poorly.

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MonsignorJabroni t1_j13yx2c wrote

The bridge isn't the very end of the navigable limit, it's just the last bridge that is needed to let boat traffic through on the navigable stretch. I assume the river becomes impassible not too far upstream from the bridge.

A canal is not natural and many of those we have today did not exist at the time referenced in this post. At the time this bridge was built, there was no point further from an ocean outlet that you could feasibly navigate a boat to without crossing land.

It's not true anymore since there's a shitload of canals elsewhere and there are dams on the Missouri river preventing moving further upstream.

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rordan t1_j15a2eb wrote

The river is actually navigable for another ~120 miles, but there are restrictions on what type of boats can go because it's a national historic and scenic stretch of the river. At the end of that stretch is the Fort Peck Dam. So I guess if you went all the way in a kayak or a canoe you could conceivably go from the Gulf all the way to Fort Peck.

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whenitpainsitrours t1_j15in9j wrote

What you describe is down stream from fort benton. Upriver is the great falls of the Missouri.

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rordan t1_j15jdgm wrote

You're right. I got confused on my directions, seeing as I've only ever floated downriver of Fort Benton. Whoops.

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AZFramer t1_j15s4j0 wrote

I think back in the day they ran steamboats right up to Three Forks, where the Missouri River begins. Of course, those boats had a 20% or better chance of sinking before they got there, but the risk was well worth the reward up until the railroad came.

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Kingcrowing t1_j158wz2 wrote

It is worded kind of oddly, and it's not a phenomenon people usually think about.

I wonder what the largest boat can make it to this point? Clearly fairly large at this point since the bridge needs to move.

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asocialmedium t1_j15cgam wrote

Why isn’t the Amazon or Nile a longer trip?

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drunkenknight9 t1_j15l2ii wrote

If we were talking about a single river they might be but we're talking about multiple rivers that are tributaries of one another.

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GeforcerFX t1_j15t1z4 wrote

It was the furthest there are big dams on the Missouri now that block larger boats and barges from moving down the river, kinda a shame since it would be a lot more efficient then using trains to move all that grain from montana and the dakotas to port.

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PuraVida3 t1_j13snn8 wrote

I understood exactly what it meant. The landlocked just don't understand the terminologies.

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