Talk:2838: Dubious Islands

As a native of the North Country of Northern New York, I'm really disappointed that Randall didn't label the St. Lawrence river. :-( 162.158.158.253 22:49, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Had a go at the Transcript. Plenty of problems with it, but I was attempting to be partway methodical (generally heading north-to-south, seemed easier than "north-and clockwise" or any other sweep, once I started to do it) and not actually mention 'quoted' words more than once. Unless they're actually written multiple times. (looking at you, Mississippi!)
But had no option but to repeat some of the quoted text within the label-descriptor 'tags', perhaps each actual fragment should indeed by given all boundaries, but I think that's better left for the table that will inevitably have to be put into the main Explanation. There one can actually list the named and unnamed bordering waters (river, canal, lake, sea and ocean) for actual reference.
Also the wording. Tried not to repeat "bounded by" synonyms too much, but maybe I should just have chosen one option and repeated it anyway, given the difficulties and contextual issues of doing it absolutely unrepeatably. But it's my best try (at just gone midnight, indicating how personally familiar I might be with the continental US's geography, or not). And thus over to you people who actually know more about the Mississippi than merely how to spell it. (Not sure I've read, and thus spelt, some of the other names given right, either. Definitely check and edit as necessary.) Perhaps a geographic map could (e.g.) even identify the "Nunavuk+" territory with a better actually known descriptor, too! Canada is even less my forté than the US. 162.158.74.63 23:50, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Im shocked that Randall conflated the hudson and Champlain when the two dont connect, missing each other by a slim margin. Source: i live close to lake george, the missing point 172.69.59.47 00:52, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

The Champlain Canal crosses that gap. 162.158.154.63 06:13, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Southern NJ is made an island by the Delaware River, the Delaware and Raritan canal and the Raritan river. -- 162.158.158.98 (talk) 03:06, 7 October 2023 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I came to this comic hoping to learn the names of the islands, and then to the explanation hoping they were present but hidden in some way. Irrational! JohnHawkinson (talk) 07:43, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

There are no names because the islands shown are not normally considered islands, so have not been given "island names". Of course, you could name them based on typical geographical labels, like "Eastern United States", "South Florida", etc. Some of the regions are distinct enough to have names, such as Cape Cod Canal naturally creating the "island" of Cape Cod - although depending on your opinion, some parts of Bourne might be considered on the Cape but on the mainland side of the Canal.- jerodast (talk) 20:53, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the point was I anticipated being entertained by Randall's conception of the dubious names for the dubious islands. JohnHawkinson (talk) 00:12, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

It should be noted that the headwaters for the Mississippi are roughly 100 miles north and east of the beginning of the Red River of the North. It's not important, really, but it is quite a long stretch to dig if someone were to actually cross the Traverse Gap. 172.70.126.81 23:58, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Where is Long Island?

Oh! Wait. The map only shows _dubious_ islands. 172.70.38.72 (talk) 06:28, 7 October 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

All actual islands (Hawaii, the myriad of ones in the Canadian arctic, etc) are not there, so I take it as read that this is the contiguous mainland continental North America (stopping at the Panama cut) with divided by all cross-waterways of any significance. i.e. major rivers, hence why no lichen-like tributary 'fan' incursions into these areas; major canals, which means massive irrigation projects (and any actual ship-navigable ones, I presume) or else ever ditch or drain would count, lakes of course (but there's a lot of lakes in the Canadian north that are not shown, let alone used as might be hydrodynamically linked).

Compared with what Great Britain might look like, so subdivided, it looks positively restrained. I mean, you can probably remove all those with dead-ends to make the 'disconnection map' simpler. And, in today's age, all stretches that are no longer viable/continuous/navigable for various reasons like railways and major roads being slapped over/next to them and rendering them obsolete/uncared-for/etc, but that still leaves quite a lot of islands, such the cut(s, several!) between Thames and Severn, the Humber to various Lancashire 'outlets', etc. And that link doesn't even show the Caledonian Canal cross (alongside/within the Great Glen), the more southerly Forth And Clyde route, etc. 141.101.98.19 16:08, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

No mention of Two Oceans Creek? 108.162.221.13 (talk) 17:52, 7 October 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Um... yes? There's a link to Parting Of The Ways (I made a grammatical/contextual edit, to make more sense, but might need another tweak) which involves the Atlantic Creek/Pacific Creek split from North Two Ocean Creek, or so I just read myself. 172.70.162.155 18:37, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Contrast with general/typical patterns of river flow?

Would it be overstuffing the explanation to get into the basic logic of how water flows, which in its most simplified form wouldn't create islands - a small stream of water would only follow the most direct path to lower elevation. Thus, rivers tend not to "branch out" going downstream, only as you travel upstream, which is really the convergence of incoming water flowing downstream. As a result, they only partially divide up land on a continent, since you can just keep going uphill until you can get around the division.

Obviously, in real terrain, the volume of a river or lake causes it to spread out, so it CAN split into two different outflow channels. Then, we also build canals, further creating divisions.

It just struck me that the map here is almost a commentary on those water channels that don't follow the "basic" rule of simply going downhill.- jerodast (talk) 04:46, 9 October 2023 (UTC)