August 22  – Between Waal and Maas

Fascinated by waters
The name of our stay in Druten is “Between Waal and Maas”. We didn’t fully realize the significance of the invisible boundary between the parched north and the lush and bountiful region fed by the Meuse River. As we have seen and experienced, none of the ferries on or north of the Waal (the Dutch part of the Rhine) are running, nor are the cargo ships on the rivers.  As we press on toward Den Bos (‘s-Hertogenbosch) we find that the fields and farms are becoming greener and visibly more productive, and the ferries on the Maas are running at full operations.  Why, we wondered, when the mighty Waal and the Ijssel are disasterously low and no ferries or other river traffic operating, is the is the much smaller Maas full and thriving?
For those of us who love rivers (as anyone raised in the town made famous by Norm Maclean’s “A River Runs through It” and also the river that once created the most cataclysmic flood in geologic history must. Or also anyone who lives near the mighty St Johns River in Florida – the longest north flowing river in America – must know) – we need answers.
And here it is – the key to understanding the puzzle of the massive Netherlands Delta with help from Gemini and Wikipedia. Probably every Dutch child is raised knowing this and takes it for granted, as we were raised knowing about the glacial lake and Lewis and Clark.  

At the Dutch border the Rhine splits into the Waal and the Nederrijn (lower or lesser Rhine), and then near Arnhem, the IJssel branches off from the Nederrijn. So everything is fed through the Rhine Valley which is suffering from drought.
On the other hand, the smaller Meuse (the English/French name for the Maas) comes straight from mountains and hills and is not feeling the draught. 

P.S. BTW if you want to know more about the cataclysmic flood that sculpted the pacific northwest look up ‘Creation of Glacial Lake Missoula’ about the river that we now call the Clark Fork River named after William Clark of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition (the Corps of Discovery).