Oxbow Lake Puns

I know St.Boniface pretty well, considering that I grew up in the area. Something I’ve noticed are the strange elevations or “dips” along Marion, St.Mary’s and Norwood Flats. This doesn’t make much sense, considering Winnipeg’s geography.

One night I came across a video explaining oxbow lakes. This mentions that when rivers curve over time, they leave behind U-shaped lakes.

Here’s the video, it’s short don’t worry! How do Rivers Curve?

After watching I brought this to my father’s attention, who’s a geologist. We printed a map and drove around, marking every curve and elevation. Sure enough, it formed a perfect U-shape.

We suspected these elevations were from a dried Oxbow from the Red river, which would have been there hundreds of years ago.

To get a definite answer, I contacted the department of Geography at the University of Winnipeg. After a phone call my suspicion was confirmed! The Red used to flow in St.Boniface, later drying up due to limited water flow. Did anybody else know this?

Just thought I would share. Thank you.

After intense lessons on oxbow lakes in geography, does anyone else look at the opening credits of Eastenders, then wonder when the oxbow lake will be created? With the millennium dome pinch point as the cut off.

Thought I'd share this playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/18sqoHvXxj1t2YpzGRRVXS?si=e3kajhlhQRaDs9-XD7uOQA

An oxbow lake is the ancient footprint of a river that's changed course over the years. If you look closely at the Mississippi River, you'll see that there's a little lake nearby every 50 miles or so for much of its length.

The St. Johns has very few, with only a couple apparent ones well south of us. What gives?

So there was this r/showerthougts post Children are given false expectations of how important knowing the difference between stalactites and stalagmites will be in later life and I thought "there's an XKCD for that", where the narrator explains that he thought that knowing what oxbow lakes were and how they formed would be super important when he grew up.

I can't find it. I remember it being fairly old, but it should still be out there. The only xkcd reference to oxbow lakes I can find is explainxkcd 1986.

Did I just imagine that? Might it be a non-xkcd comic? Can anyone else remember a comic, any comic, like that?

It is, I am told, the only natural lake (not man made) in the state. Originally an \"Ox Bow\" bend in the Little Pautuxent, it got cut off from the river, and beavers' dams caused it to fill. It is now well preserved and smack in the middle of a highly populated area.