The Thames flows southwest for 273 kilometres through southwestern Ontario, from the Town of Tavistock through the cities of Woodstock, London and Chatham to Lighthouse Cove on Lake St. Clair. Its drainage basin is 5,825 square kilometres.
I've very familiar with this area. My husband comes from this part of the world and I have visited many times in our 44 years (s0 far) together.
The river is known as Deshkaan-ziibi / Eshkani-ziibi ("Antler River") in the Ojibwe language, spoken by Anishnaabe peoples who, along with the Neutrals prior to their disappearance in the 17th century, have lived in the area since before Europeans arrived. This name was anglicized as Escunnisepe as the first English name of the river. In 1793, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe named the river after the River Thames in England. Early French Canadians referred to it as La Tranche, for the wide and muddy waters of its lower section.
Much of the Thames was formerly surrounded by deciduous Carolinian forests, but much of this forest has been cleared to permit agriculture and other forms of development.
(Wikipedia)
The Thames is one of Ontario's most historic waterways....Draining an area of nearly 6,000 sq. km., the Thames begins as a rivulet near Tavistock and gradually assembles small tributaries on its 273 km journey to Lake St. Clair. But the most unusual landscape through which it flows is the flat farmland between Chatham and Lake St. Clair because much of it lies below the level of the river.
From the earliest settlements led by Alexander Selkirk in the 1820s, the region has suffered from floods from the river and inundations from the lake. As a result, a system of levees and drainage canals was installed to stem the floods, allowing the rich soil to be put into growing a wide range of vegetables and crops.
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Now two conservation authorities together have jurisdiction over the Thames River watershed, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority, and work to prevent damaging floods and undertake other resource management activities.
There are three rivers in the watershed with Thames in the name—the Thames River itself, North Thames River, and Middle Thames River. These are also known locally as South Branch, North Branch, and Middle Branch. The South Branch, which begins as several field drains near Tavistock and initially flows southeasterly before turning southwesterly towards Woodstock, is the main stem Thames River and officially carries the Thames River name.
The Thames River and North Thames River in the upper part of the watershed flow through valleys created during the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet during the last ice age. The Thames River and North Thames River meet in central London at the "Forks"; the University of Western Ontario is located north of the Forks at the north branch's confluence with Medway Creek. The Middle Thames River runs north of the Thames River joining it west of Ingersoll. Downriver from London, the lower part of the Thames flows through a shallow plain of sand and clay, with an average depth of 1.2 metres (4 ft). Urban areas the lower Thames flows through include Delaware, Chatham, Thamesville, as well as Chippewa and Oneida First Nations settlements. Tributaries of the three Thames Rivers include the Avon River, Dingman Creek, Jeanettes Creek, McGregor Creek, Medway Creek, Pottersburg Creek, Stoney Creek, Trout Creek and Waubuno Creek.
The river was the location of an important battle of the War of 1812. The Battle of the Thames (also known as the Battle of Moraviantown) fought on October 5, 1813, between American General William Henry Harrison and British General Henry Proctor, along with Proctor's ally Tecumseh. Chief Tecumseh was killed in the battle.
On August 14, 2000, the Thames River was designated a Canadian Heritage River.
The Thames River is home to about 90 species of fish and 30 species of freshwater mussel. As one of the southern-most rivers in Canada, many of the species found in its waters are found almost nowhere else in the country, and a number are legally protected as species at risk, including Blanding's turtle, northern map turtle, common snapping turtle, stinkpot turtle, spiny softshell turtle, spotted turtle, northern ribbon snake, queen snake, kidneyshell, rainbow mussel, round pigtoe, wavy-rayed lampmussel, gravel chub, northern madtom, black redhorse, eastern sand darter, northern brook lamprey, pugnose minnow, river redhorse, silver shiner, and spotted sucker.
(Wikipedia)
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