26 November 2019

La Somme, fleuve côtier ?

In the French language, a distinction is made between rivers that are tributaries of another river, and rivers that flow directly from their source to the sea. A tributary is called une rivière. A river that runs from its source all the way to the sea is called un fleuve. Where we live, outside Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher in the Loir-et-Cher département ("county" or "prefecture"), la Loire is the fleuve, and the two rivers the département is named for, le Loir and le Cher. Both flow into the Loire — the Cher directly, and the Loir indirectly.

The town in the middle of this image is Le Crotoy, with Cayeux-sur-Mer on the other side of the river.

Of course, this is all a matter of convention — it might even be seen as arbitrary — because somebody once had to decide which river is the real river and which other rivers flow into it. In other words, maybe the Cher is the river and the Loire is a branch of it that flows into the Cher. To give a U.S. example, why is the Missouri River considered to be a tributary of the Mississippi? From its source in Montana down to the Gulf of Mexico, the Missouri is longer than the Mississippi is from its source in Minnesota to the Gulf. I think Europeans declared the Mississippi to be the main river because it's the one they discovered first. It's probably that simple.

Bay? Delta?

France's Somme river, in the area where we are going to spend a week in April (if all works out), is a fleuve. In the French Wikipédia about it it's called a fleuve côtier — a coastal river. That's a fairly vague term. A river is described as "coastal" because its source is not that far from the coast. Who defines "that far"? The Somme river is just 250 kilometers long — 150 miles or so — while the Loire flows for 1,000 kilometers from source to sea — 600 miles. Many French fleuves côtiers are much shorter, and in America we might call them "tidal rivers" because they rise and fall according to the rhythm of the tides.

Slightly to the left of center in this image is the medieval town of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme (no accent on Valery [val-ree].

Anyway, the Baie de Somme is where the Somme river — and its dozens of direct and indirect tributaries — flow into the sea. It seems to me to be an estuary or delta more than it is a bay, as we commonly use the term in the U.S. I'll be curious to see how much of a bay there really is up there. It looks like more sand than water. An estuary is the mouth of a river, where the salt water of the sea mingles with the fresh water flowing down the river toward the coast. That "mingled" water is called "brackish" — saumâtre in French — "briny." The French Wikipédia article about the Somme describes it as « un fleuve peu abondant » — there's not all that much water in it. It's a lazy river that flows slowly but fairly steadily.

Saint-Valery and Le Crotoy sort of face each other across the river delta.

I've seen the Somme farther inland, thanks to my friend CHM. One branch of his family comes from this part of France, and we've driven up there several times and spent a few days exploring the area. However, the only time I've seen the Baie de Somme I was looking out the window of an airplane. I was flying out from Paris for one of my trips to North Carolina. The plane flew right over the Baie de Somme and I took these photos. It was in April 2013. For seven years now, I've been thinking it would be fun to go spend a week up there, and that will finally happen, I hope, in April 2020.

19 comments:

  1. Morning Ken, the gite looks very nice... we were at Berck for a 2CV Rally 1n 2005...
    yes, it is a nice area... one of the places we liked most were the Jardins de Valloires at the Abbaye de Valloires, about 15k from where you will be staying.
    Worth the drive... and the bump at the bottom of the first picture and right-hand side of the other two, is one of the largest bird reserves in Europe and internationally important...
    Park Marquenterre.... and you will be there during the migration so, from anywhere along the coast, you may well see interesting things.... and don't forget the phoques!

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    1. Thanks, Tim. Berck is a funny name in French. It basically means "yuck!" I've been reading about the Parc du Marquenterre, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'll look for information about the Abbaye de Valloires. Often we don't have a chance to visit such places, because dogs aren't admitted.

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  2. All rivers that flow into the sea are fleuves côtiers!

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  3. Have you read this? For example: Un fleuve côtier est un petit cours d'eau qui prend naissance près des côtes et qui se jette dans la mer ou dans l'océan, avec un débit permanent. The Loire, for example, doesn't qualify under that definition. If every fleuve is a fleuve côtier, why do we need two different terms! LOL

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    1. That's exactly my point. The Somme is not a fleuve côtier. It's headwaters are 152 miles [245 kilomèters] away. That's not really close to the coast, is it? In this context, on the Net, the word côtier has completely lost its meaning! Électronique évolution du langage ?

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    2. I wonder whether a real fleuve côtier is devoid of any tributary?

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    3. I think all rivers, be they fleuves or rivières, has tributaries. Very small ones, maybe, but still... There is no such thing as a river that flows from one precise point all the way to the sea. It's always a web of small watercourses.

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    4. Saint-Quentin, where the Somme has its source, is less than 125 kilometers from the coast at Le Crotoy.

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    5. Is it as the crow flies? In any case the Somme is 245 kilomètres long which makes erroneous the title of this post!;-)

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    6. I've added a question mark to the title of my post. By the way, the sources I see say that the maximum length of a "coastal river" is "generally" said to be 200 kilometers.

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    7. Depending on which site you read, the definition of fleuve côtier varies widely. Now, I'm begining to wonder if the word côtier doesn't have a different meaning whether you're talking linguistingly or geographycally? As you said, the source of the Somme is in the vicinity of Saint-Quentin, 125 km away as the crow flies from the estuary; I wouldn't call that close to the coast as CNRTL says.

      Only in the US can somebody in Alaska see Russia from her kitchen! ;-)

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  4. I couldn't post yesterday for some reason. I have fond memories of our stays in gites. Your photos from the plane are very good and now you'll get to see the sights there. Seeing a bird migration would be neat.

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  5. I have a picture of my grandfather in uniform labeled Somme 1918. He was born in 1895.

    In grade school we were taught that "Mississippi" is an Indian word for "father of all waters."

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    1. Google says "The Algonkian speaking Indians called the river 'Father of Waters' as it's the largest river in North America, channeling two Canadian Provinces and 31 states. Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle was the first to make a map calling the 'Father of Waters,' the Mississippi River, in 1695..."

      Of course back in the 20th century we called them the Algonquins, and I always associated them with upstate NY....So who knows?

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    2. When Google says the Mississippi's drainage basin covers 31 states, that probably includes the states that the Missouri flows through.

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  6. Great pictures you took there from the plane! I bet you're going to have a great time in the gîte, it's a nice area - albeit quite crowded in summer. Although we travelled along the coast on a couple of occasions, I'm afraid I can't tell you much about it. The reason being that we didn't really visit many places: we were travelling in a campervan with the 3 dogs we had at the time (some 10 years ago) on our way to places a bit further south. We did enjoy the beaches at several occasions though - as did our dogs! There are some very picturesque towns to be seen.

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  7. Last winter, I went over to that coast with a friend from Normandy, to visit someone near Fécamp. Incredible chalk cliffs and spectacular light bouncing off the water. Also cold wind.
    I remember my father talking about the US army in Abbeville late in 1944, and the town suffered quite a bit. The Ninth Army came across the Channel to that region.

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  8. The photos of this area are fascinating to me. This morning I couldn't very well make out what I was seeing, but this evening its making much more sense to me. I look forward to hearing about your holiday in the area and wish you good weather.

    Diogenes, I think of the Algonquins as upstate New York and the part of Canada north of that, but the upstate New York Indians who lived (and still live) near where I spend time in the summers are the Senecas and they belonged to the Iroquois Confederation.

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