Why was this Sea in North America on Old Maps?

[@GeographyGeek]

Thank you RareMaps.com for supporting another video! Their maps and descriptions are a huge part of the research and visuals that go in these videos. You can purchase your own map with the Sea of the West from their website. - RareMaps.com/

[@Thingsyourollup]

Bless your heart for thinking i'd have $5000 just laying around to buy old maps with.

[@GeographyGeek]

@@Thingsyourollup some are less than $200

[@lourias]

Are you SURE that that sea never existed? There is now belief that there was a huge lake out in that area. From Missoula, Montana to the coast. It was a remnant of the last Ice Age. To my understanding, they do not know when the dam broke, but the lake did exixt.

[@GeographyGeek]

@@lourias I believe that multiple stories got combined into one and this depiction is how the De L’Isle family interpreted them. Could have been Great Salt Lake, Puget Sound, the Pacific Ocean, maybe some other bodies of water all combined into one. Plus there was a bit of wishful thinking involved. Every inland sea I’ve covered involved the map maker interpreting what they heard as exactly what they wanted to hear. Edit: spelling

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

@@GeographyGeek My apologies, I wrote a strikingly similar comment before I saw yours. Great minds think alike?🙂

[@Peanutbetter27]

It sounds like a bunch of Europeans heard some stories about the Puget Sound, the Great Salt Lake, and few rivers and started making up oceans again.

[@GeographyGeek]

I feel the same. A lot of stories merged into one with a bit of wishful thinking sprinkled in.

[@eddiejc1]

Because the French wanted to believe there was a great inland sea, that's how what they heard. It's possible that the natives were referring to the Great Lakes which were further east, and the French thought they were talking about something in the west.

[@kermitwilson]

North Central California was a massive seasonal lake back then as well. It’s since been eliminated and the water diverted by a massive system dams and canals. “Cadillac Desert” is a phenomenal history of water management in the western USA and covers this

[@tyronos]

Number one, the puget sound doesn't stink, number two, the now dried up Tulare lake is better positioned to be the sea of the west. Also it had no outlet, so i imagine it smelled a bit like the Salton sea... not good

[@tyronos]

Also the name you're looking for is the Salish sea, and by no means is it an "inland" sea, nor can it be reached by river.

[@GeographyGeek]

I left my own thoughts out of this video so I’ll put them here. The Sea of the West in the form you see on the maps definitely didn’t exist. The topography and geological history of the region just don’t support it. With that being said I think there is a small bit of truth to it. Just as the Sea of Verrazano turned out to be a sighting of Pamlico Sound, the Appalachian Salt Lake may have been native references to the Great Lakes, the Sea of the West may have been combined stories of the Great Salt Lake, the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound, and maybe other bodies of water but the final ingredient was wishful thinking by Europeans just like the other seas. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I left that part out of the video when I included it in the others. Edit: I added some more information and my thoughts on the Sea of the West in another video on my personal channel - kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqTWe4WOac-di68

[@Kahless_the_Unforgettable]

This is what I was looking for. I was thinking it could be the Great Salt Lake. But I'm not sure about the Great Lakes. The Europeans would have known about the Great Lakes. I think they would have attempted to rule them out when speaking with the natives. I'm not sure that would have been successful. Considering how badly they wanted to believe in The Sea of the West. But I'm fairly sure they would have tried to make sure they weren't talking about those lakes. Maybe by mentioning salt?

[@GeographyGeek]

@@Kahless_the_Unforgettable The Great Lakes reference was for the Appalachian Salt Lake not the Sea of the West. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gF6nkoqHi5ijrtk

[@tauron1]

Yes, it would make perfect sense that the "sea" the natives were referencing was the Great Salt Lake. Map making was not all that accurate back then.

[@GeographyGeek]

@@tauron1 maps were pretty accurate then when it came to parts actually surveyed but the Sea of the West was theoretical which viewers at the time would have known.

[@tauron1]

@@GeographyGeek most of the maps were somewhat accurate, I guess for that time they would be considered very accurate, however when it came to this hypothetical sea, most of the information was gleaned from the Native population who mentioned a sea to the west. Now unless you are considering that they were speaking about the Pacific Ocean, then it would stand to reason they in reality meant the Great Salt Lake as that is the only sizable body of water west of the Mississippi. Now as for the placement of said "Sea" on the map, location, size and orientation of land masses and bodies of water on ancient maps were rarely accurate. Interesting topic for sure, I enjoy looking at ancient maps, as I get a real chuckle and at times amazement on what peoples from long ago thought. btw, the Great Salt Lake would also be far larger that back then, than it ever was in the early 19th century when people started to settle in the area.

[@ConradDunkerson]

Others have noted various aspects of this, but I think a strong case could be argued for the native accounts to have been referring to Lake Bonneville... which survives today as the much smaller Great Salt Lake of Utah. The description of a stinking salt sea fits like nothing else in the region, and the area aligns fairly well with Bonneville's historic location. It seems reasonable that people living far away would continue to tell stories of the size of the lake at its height rather than its (then) modern size.

[@tigerstallion]

its pretty huge, and was even bigger a couple centuries ago. Not sure the natives ever described it to be as big as some of those maps have it, probably because they conflated it with SF Bay or pugeot sound. Like Conrad said, I think the stinking description is the dead give away

[@joshkrause2977]

1000 years ago it was 20,000 miles in size.

[@eastsidetactown]

Im almost certain they conflated the great salt lake and the puget sound as one big body of water because they had no concept of the scale of either, having never seen them

[@StratospheralNurse]

Highly plausible in my opinion, not that it’s worth much lol

[@markburke1396]

if you look at the old map, you can see that none of the currently existing lakes are actually mentioned. I can only imagine that perhaps they were alot more connected back then and considered 1 large lake, instead of several lakes.

[@roberticvs]

I wonder if we could start a new society, like the Flat Earth Society; a "Sea of the West Society". We will uphold the existence of this body of water, denounce anyone who says otherwise, propose a vast conspiracy to conceal it from modern maps, and hold regular appreciation meetings dedicated to restoring it to modern maps! No one from British Columbia will be allowed in the club, of course.

[@GeographyGeek]

I’m down

[@angelamonk716]

Flat Earth Society is a controlled opposition

[@Strong_UP_Calvins_zombie]

I'm in, down with the government conspiracy,and the province of British Columbia! You can't keep the Sea of the west from the world any longer!!

[@truenorthstrongfree]

Am from Banff, can confirm there is a large inland sea between the Canadian Rockies and Vancouver.

[@angelamonk716]

@@truenorthstrongfree salt lake is a Sea

[@gypseysurprise]

There are rumored to be quite a few Spanish explorations in the two hundred years between Juan de Fuca in 1592 and Juan Perez in 1774 that were kept secret by the Spanish crown. Its no surprise that Straight of Juan de Fuca and the Columbia River mouth are charted accurately before their official discovery. I've sailed the Straight of Juan de Fuca and it feels enormous, two distant mountainous landmasses on either side makes it seem like youre entering a gate, and once you get to about present day Victoria BC, there are opportunities for sailing in any direction. If you went no further and the weather was like it usually is around here, you might be mistaken you are in an endless archipelago. I'm guessing the French reinforced their idea of an inland sea with the Spanish accounts of the entrances they saw along the coast.

[@DugrozReports]

This seems like the most likely explanation.

[@Afterburner]

You do realize there was once a giant lake called "Lake Missoula" that existed some 13,000 years ago that was held back by an ice-dam which repeatedly broke and reformed as the ice age receded. It existed as a combined ice sheet and southern lake that nearly precisely fits in the area of the lake you show in this video. Lake Missoula occupied a great deal of area in Montana, rivaling or exceeding the Great Lakes further east in terms of size and water volume. Much of Oregon and Washington were scoured by water released from this dam break in disasters with water up to 600 feet high, traces of which are still easy to see on the landscape. Undoubtedly, Native Americans likely witnessed these events and recorded it in their legends. This occurred some 20 to 25 times with these floods happening over the course of several centuries. These events are likely the source of the legends with the various native American tribes, all of which likely heard about the multiple disasters in the Pacific Northwest during that era. You should do another video to share the maps that show the lake as it was and talk about the nature of the disasters that befell Oregon and Washington State because of that lake's violent water releases.

[@1ACL]

Yes. The people remembered and passed down the history. Then I suppose more modern people who had never been there or seen it (being so far in the past) just retold the history to the Europeans as current fact. Oral history has been proven to be more enduring and acurrate than written history.

[@Afterburner]

@@1ACL Absolutely correct - Thanks for the nice comment!

[@litigioussociety4249]

Those dates are very flexible. When it comes to prehistoric America anything from 3,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago is plausible for much native stuff. That would allow for the lake to still be there within the time that the ancestors of the current native tribes might have come. They may also have heard it from the Clovis people that came earlier.

[@foodog3026]

Thanks for saving me 8+ mins of my life

[@butre.]

I think it's just the salish. he mentions between 47 and 48 latitude, west coast, big bit of water, all signs point to the salish sea. they were just confused about the scale of it

[@kimberlyperrotis8962]

Fascinating, thank you. It’s possible that the European explorers conflated the natives’ accounts of two different seas, the Great Salt Lake and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. “Eight days ride” from the Southwestern US, and “stinking water” sounds much more like the Great Salt Lake to me. I believe that the natives were perfectly accurate, and it’s the Europeans who made the goof, considering the language barrier. There’s also an element if wishful thinking present, as in the famous, non-existent, Northwest Passage.

[@adriancarter2863]

Following recent climate change and global warming, the high Artic has been afforded the most, resulting in merchant shipping now being able to traverse from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean via the Bearing Strait the Artic Ocean and the Labrador Sea during the summer months. ie: The Northwest Passage. Similarly, merchant shipping can now traverse between Archangel and Vladivostok across northern Russia/Siberia during the summer months. Ex-Soviet era nuclear powered Ice Breakers maintain this Artic sea route all summer.

[@SebHaarfagre]

What on Earth are you talking about? The Northwest Passage is a very real and tangible thing.

[@Docteroftime]

@@SebHaarfagre calm ya tits, they are referring in the northwest “inland” passage. Not the one that goes the Atlantic and pacific through the Arctic. Don’t be getting angry on KZbin.

[@Zerububble]

Another possibility - the area around Sacramento CA ("Central valley"?) has had a lake in it at times.

[@rudra62]

@@adriancarter2863 Indeed! There is a Northwest Passage. They were just looking at it too early, before we got the current level of climate change. It'll be open longer as the earth warms. Oh, nevermind that the global warming will cause far more problems than it will solve!

[@ekszentrik]

Videos like this are EXACTLY why I watch history KZbin. Making full use of the medium, and seeming very well researched.

[@GeographyGeek]

I appreciate it!

[@GeographyGeek]

I added some more information and my thoughts on the Sea of the West in another video - kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqTWe4WOac-di68

[@mrnobody3161]

The Hudson Bay Company in Canada with Trading Posts and Fur Trappers chasing beaver pelts, were some of the earliest explorers of N America, but they went west much further north in Canada.

[@donjulio420]

There once was a massive lake in California named Lake Tulare. It’s water was diverted for irrigation purposes and is now gone.

[@nickyalexa7744]

Up here in Montana, we have a museum that has maps and claims the Pacific Ocean once came into Canada in the same area. It continued into Montana, connecting to the now Missouri River and taking up most of the eastern half of the state. It then connected to the Mississippi and went all the way down to the Gulf.

[@brianmorger2174]

That's correct Nicky and I live near Great Falls and find sea shells, although small when I hike across what are now wheat fields .

[@jasonriley9677]

Lake Tulare in the central valley of California was recorded to be 26 miles wide and over 200 miles long in the 1800s. Today it's a small lake in Tulare, it was by reduced irrigation done at the turn of the century.

[@777Poker]

Exactly big bodies of water, sometimes simply just dry up. And sometimes floods happen and make new bodies of water. Has nothing to do with tectonic plates, or if people were making of regions or whatever.

[@joesmoe282000]

Yep and more than likely connected to San Francisco Bay

[@jasonriley9677]

@@777Poker True and California has lots of seismic activity.

[@jasonriley9677]

@@joesmoe282000 scientists claim that there was a body of water much larger known by geologists as lake Concord and the remains of prehistoric manatees have been found as far south as Bakersfield.

[@DuckOfRubber]

I love how in maps of that time period the east coast is impressively close to reality but the further west you go the crazier it gets.

[@kellywellington7122]

So...No mention of San Francisco Bay, nor the Great Salt Lake. There once was a 'great inland sea', but it has largely disappeared, leaving a huge salt pan.

[@josiahhall987]

Lake Bonneville!

[@krakenmahboy]

Yes, the western United States used to have massive lakes, such as Lake Corcoran in California's Central Valley (that left behind Lake Tulare after drying up), Lake Bonneville in Utah (that left behind the Great Salt Lake after drying up), Lake Lahontan in Nevada (that left behind Pyramid Lake), and Lake Missoula in Montana. Corcoran drained out hundreds of thousands of years ago, but the last three did exist until about 13kya (13,000 years ago). As far as we currently know, that time frame does allow for migrating people into western North America (starting around 15kya-25kya) to have discovered them, but they would not have lasted long at all and certainly were mostly dried up by the 17th-19th centuries.

[@puffsniffy6425]

cool that you worked your ad into the fabric of the video and used rare maps as a resource. i bet they appreciated it too lol

[@hatuletoh]

As a resident of Salt Lake City, I knew exactly what the source of the native stories would be. Especially when the Sioux mentioned the "stinking waters." After 150 years of human dumping things into it, those waters stink even worse now.

[@MFBloosh]

It’s also salty while most lakes are fresh water, which is why they thought it was a sea. Just a thought.

[@mikewabrown1052]

Yeah sounds right to me to. Never been to(nor smelled) the great salt lake though, but I like to think it may be stinky. God bless brother!

[@MistyKathrine]

@@mikewabrown1052 The stinking is always the worst in the summer when the lake levels drop and the algae gets exposed and rots.

[@brianmorger2174]

I live in Montana and I often find miniature sea 🐚 shells in the wind blown areas of the Great Plains. So there truly was an Inland sea here , albeit in prehistoric time.

[@nickzalan4762]

That's the part that doesn't make sense to me, for the sea to have been over the great plans it would mean some major natural disaster would've had to occur for the sea to dry up in the time span of 1500 to 1750

[@thwingerpodthvet4302]

@@nickzalan4762 did you not hear the part about “prehistoric times”? There hasn’t been a sea there for millions of years.

[@mikebronicki8264]

Lake Missoula existed as recently as 13,000 years ago. It covered much of Washington, Idaho and Montana. It was created by glaciers of the last ice age.

[@WojciechP915]

Basically, there was a conspiracy in the cartographer/seafarer community to keep up the kings' hopes for a northwest passage. This ensured continued funding for their jobs. If they were to flat out admit that a northwest passage wasn't feasible, they would be out of work!

[@pinkiesue849]

the people could not believe how far north the Northwest Passage is, but I am sure there was a history of using it back in the warm times. How nice the weather must have been then.

[@Maddog3060]

And no way that could ever happen today in this day and age. _>

[@dennisenright7725]

I can understand how the idea might have started. The geogia straits and puget sound area, known to the natives in the area as the salish sea, are 650km from olympia to the north end of Vancouver island, and the main outlet is almost 48 degrees north

[@nancyacker5747]

Perhaps ancient memories of the Great Basin area?

[@robertfindley921]

I wonder if cartographers intruduced intentional errors in maps in case they were acquired by their adversaries. The creator and the intended users would know not to follow that information, but an adversary would not. In software, benign errors are intentionally introduced sometimes to detect copyright violations.

[@Peanutbetter27]

Map makers have done that for a really long time. For a more modern instance, you can look up phantom settlements.

[@sethharrington1796]

Map men did a video on this. They specifically pointed at cities and false streets. In one instance there was a false settlement made and then later a convince store popped up there, and looking at the map named the store after the fake location. So when another map maker added the settlement (I can't remember if he plagiarized or not) and was later sued because of the store he won the case.

[@MightandMagic88]

Yup, Paper Towns, or in this case a Paper Sea

[@soybased2995]

There are large salt deposits in Saskatchewan Canada, huge salt lakes that dried up long ago. The brine shrimp come to life when it rains, it's weird

[@redwolf915]

It's eggs that stay dormant

[@benhutchinson9703]

It’s very possible they’re referring to prehistoric Lake Lahontan. At one point it covered the entire stage of Nevada, Utah, parts of New Mexico, some of Colorado etc…

[@davideaston6944]

Yes, seems clear now that this is the Juan deFuca Straight (finding that entrance, and seeing the Strait of Georgia the north, and Puget Sound, to the south. but no one ever going up or down into either; and below it, the navigable Columbia River... Cool.

[@robinanthony7946]

Just like the Peri Reis depiction of ice free Antarctica from the 1600's, it may be from stories of way back, when the scablands of Oregon and Washington were inundated by the melting glaciers of 11,600 years ago.

[@randomuser5443]

I havent finished the video but it looks like there are actual rivers that can get to the Pacific Ocean

[@greasher926]

Yes the Columbia river flows in to the ocean, but originally it wasn’t navigable. There were many sand bars at the mouth that would cause a lot of ship wrecks, it wasn’t until 1877 that the river was dredged down to Portland, OR. And then beyond that through the the Columbia gorge there were many rapids that also made it impossible to pass, that issue wasn’t resolved until the dams were built in the 1930s. But even today the river is only navigable to the Idaho border. Hells canyon is still not navigable to this day.

[@matthewbattie1022]

It was a melted glacial lake called Lakeati ks aaktuk. It broke through a glacial wall and flooded half of what is now Canada and the U.S. It created a series of deposits across it's flood plane, including large mounds in the Midwest and large stones in the Northwest. There was a similar glacial lake in the Midwest called Lake Bonneville. The remains of the lake are Great Bear Lake, and Great Slave Lake. The remains of Lake Bonneville are called Utah Lake, and the Great Salt Lake. The map makers of the renaissance had access to many of these ancient maps that are now off limits, in the Vatican archives.

[@davidgrech4574]

Thank you so much for your expertise and I hope you have a wonderful week ahead 🌎

[@GeographyGeek]

Thank you! You too!

[@LuisAldamiz]

Obviously there is a sea by the west: the Pacific Ocean and, if you follow the river (the Missouri I understand) to the high (Rocky) mountains and then get any river heading west of them... you'll end up by the Pacific Ocean, where the Spaniards had colonies (notably California) and traded exotic knives while having beards. Alternatively the river is not the whole Missouri but the Missouri-Platte and the sea is the Great Salt Lake, which is (or was before dessication) approximately round. I dislike this interpretation though but I would support that they would take the Colorado all the way to the Gulf of California in Mexico where the Castilians were firmly established.

[@masrr3678]

Didn't the natives say the people selling exotic knives had no hair at all? Facial or on their heads?

[@LuisAldamiz]

@@masrr3678 - I understood the exact opposite: that they had hair on their faces.

[@LuisAldamiz]

@@masrr3678 - You're right. I checked and they were explicitly called "peeled heads" (shaven heads). Maybe a group of natives that either had other way of making knives or traded them from the Spaniards?

[@heatherkuhn6559]

@@LuisAldamiz Or possibly tonsured missionaries?

[@LuisAldamiz]

@@heatherkuhn6559 That's a very good point I had not thought about. Priests and monks would also shave their faces... unless Russian orthodox, we can discard those but the Catholic Castilians are plausible.

[@frankvehafric5062]

What's always amazing to me in the study of history is learning the rate at which scholars and authorities just made stuff up without a shred of evidence and apparently believed themselves. One wonders how many current authorities and pundits work from the same playbook.

[@patrickroers752]

Enter Neil degrasse tyson

[@catyatzee4143]

When I saw this video being recommended my first thought was "DID WE LOSE A WHOLE SEA?!?!"

[@marklytle6376]

If you travel along the coast from the mouth of the Columbia river ( 4.6 ) miles wide then into Washington along Long Beach to the north end, which is along Willapa bay , I can see how from that walking perspective that they could come to that conclusion of an inland sea. It is a vast area with some small rivers flowing south and some flowing north into these two body’s of water, but very close together.

[@jordanbell9356]

This also could have been referring to Lake Corcoran, may not have been salt water but a giant lake that filled the entire San Joaquin Valley. Central California could have been what the Natives were talking about. Before it drained out and dried up it would have seemed like a big inland sea.

[@angelamonk716]

Salt Lake is sea water

[@LuisAldamiz]

I thought about that but the river > mountains > river connection don't add up. Then I thought that they probably got the Colorado river and that the Western Sea is just the Gulf of California... were bearded Spaniards traded exotic steel knives quite probably.

[@jbtownsend9535]

Salt Lake also generally corresponds to the southeasternmost shores of the Mer l’Ouest on these creative maps. I can see how back then word-of-mouth legends, tall tales and the like (see the Fountain of Youth) were abounding while beliefs, folklore, and facts were interchangeable.

[@greasher926]

The bear river does flow into the great salt lake and it’s head waters are in Wyoming, but it’s water basin doesn’t border the Missouri River basin. Perhaps they were referring to the Clark fork that flows into the Columbia River and then the Pacific Ocean.

[@angelamonk716]

@@greasher926 likely comes from under ground . Just a thought

[@patricktilton5377]

Hmm . . . it looks to me as if somebody had made a fairly accurate map depicting the Pacific Ocean's inlet to San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay to the north . . . only to grossly enlarge it and turn it into this "Sea of the West" monstrosity. Maybe there was a map which included an 'inset' map of the lands bordering those two bays, but then some other mapmaker didn't realize it was an inset map and made it into that humongous thing that is quite literally "mad north by northwest" in those later maps!

[@LA-hx8gj]

Ah, yes. The ol', "they just weren't as smart as us," comments.

[@pepperypeppers2755]

The sinking sea and salt lake stories could be explained by salt lake city and the Bonneville salt flats, which are a lakebed and are underwater part of the years

[@Transilvanian90]

If you look at the map, the Sea appears to be an exaggeration of the Georgia Strait (the body of water between Vancouver Island and the mainland), perhaps incorporating Puget sound into it as well. It's easy to imagine how oral accounts traveling east to the plains could become exaggerated and, mixed with European wishes to find an inland sea, result in a larger sea than what is actually there. The real-life Juan de Fuca straight fits perfectly with the one on the maps, as does the depiction of the sea as being immediately west of the Rocky Mountains depicted on those maps.

[@owlostrom6812]

I was thinking the same…it’s large area that takes hour(s) by modern ferry, can you imagine paddling from the Island to the mainland?

[@coupdegras107]

California's Central Valley was a sea in prehistory

[@LTPottenger]

On some old maps all of north america north of mexico is under ice. Which would explain why population was so low and spanish did not really bother. Also could explain the existence of an inland ocean or very large lake at some point.

[@promontorium]

You might notice on the maps "San Francisco" alternatively mentions of Francis Drake. This is what's today called "Drake's Bay". San Francisco Bay is not on any of the maps shown in this video. San Francisco bay was curiously not discovered until 1769. Even though explorers and traders had sailed up and down the coast hundreds of times over hundreds of years. It wasn't until a group on foot accidentally found San Francisco Bay while looking for Monterey Bay (it looks so nondescript they walked past it). Back then Drake's Bay was known as San Francisco Bay. The explorers who found San Francisco Bay assumed it was the "San Francisco Bay" found by Francis Drake, so they called it San Francisco Bay. Eventually the bigger bay won the name, so the original San Francisco Bay became Drake's Bay. Bonus Bonus, the city of San Francisco got its name for a completely different reason than the bay, so their names being the same is just a coincidence. The city was named after the Spanish Mission, which was supposed to be the final California Mission set up by Franciscan friars, so they named the last one after their patron saint. Nearly 50 years later they ended up setting up one more, and then named that one "San Francisco Solano". And if that isn't confusing enough, while the Mission in San Francisco was officially called San Francisco, everyone locally called it "Mission Dolores. The nearby town wasn't called San Francisco either, it was called Yerba Buena. But map makers kept calling the city San Francisco because they didn't know the local names, just the official name of the mission, so eventually the city of Yerba Buena made an official proclamation stating that because everyone keeps getting the name of their city wrong, and they're known world wide, they'll just rename Yerba Buena to San Francisco to spare more confusion. I can go down this rabbit hole all day. Yerba Buena means good herb and referred to a plant that smelled good as Spanish walked around. They also named the island facing the Yerba Buena cove, Yerba Buena Island. Today Yerba Buena Island is connect to Treasure Island, which is a completely artificial island built to become an airport, but never ended up being that. While Yerba Buena island still exists today, Yerba Buena Cove is entirely filled in, what is much of San Francisco's downtown is what used to be underwater. OK ONE MORE. The reason nobody found San Francisco Bay is because of how narrow the Golden Gate strait is (which is also a reason that made the bay so valuable) also there are various islands in the bay and so many hills and mountains that if you look at it from the ocean at a distance you could entirely miss seeing the strait that lead into the bay, and instead just see a series of mountains/hills. And on top of all of this, because the bay is so shallow, it lends to a lot of evaporation, the bay is quickly warmed in the summer and San Francisco is frequently foggy. The famous fog around the strait probably frequently made it invisible to passing ships. The Golden Gate being the name of the strait of course, the bridge was named after the strait, not the other way around...............OK OMG ONE MORE DON'T HATE.......... The man who named the strait "Golden Gate" was John Fremont, a man of a crazy long resume including being a Civil War general, and personally responsible for starting the war with Mexico in California to steal California from Mexico, he was also an explorer (places are named after him across the country) and the first Republican nominee for president. Obviously he lost. Lincoln was the second, 4 years later and won. Lincoln and Fremont were notoriously frenemies.

[@Butter_Warrior99]

I gotta love how conspiracy theorists take old maps pike these at face value, and have the gaul to reject satellite maps.

[@GeographyGeek]

Exactly. Even people at the time didn’t take it at face value.

[@Talltrees432]

There was an inland sea in the east Bay Area, more specifically the Livermore valley. In a park called Brushy Peak, you can still see the salt grass, and an area about a mile long and roughly 100 feet wide in some parts it actually looks just like some of the marshes in Hayward/Fremont. I’m not exactly sure how long ago it had saltwater running through, but this sounds similar. Just an old inland sea.

[@TJDawgs72]

I lived in the scablands of central Washington state. You can see the effects of Glacial Lake Missoula filling, breaking and filling again and again. I'm sure the natives has oral traditions of this history. Thanks for the video...

[@TTVToxic-yu5ov]

KZbin just recommended this video and I'm sn instant subscriber. This channel is so cool!!

[@adamheskett6245]

There are still sea shells in the mud west of steamboat springs - west of craig Colorado in northwest Colorado.

[@tsya]

i love this channel sm

[@KhaoticDeterminism]

Cause San Francisco Bay is just that cool And I am pretty sure that inland sea (California interior) will be back soon enough with sea water rising.

[@boba2783]

Pulse 1a and 1b would have produced a sea just like that 11-12k years ago- fascinating

[@pootube2024]

The Great flood from The younger dryas melting

[@withershin]

I ran the first map through ArcGIS and it's most like that the bay is what is Vancouver/Seattle waterways today. It warps to be right there but goes over the Rockies.

[@gmanvaca8269]

Several commentators are probably right. The explorer’s were experienced with the Mediterranean sea. The Golden Gate / SF Bay was likely seen as an entry point. The talk of spring flooding in the Central Valley, the various lakes in Nevada and the great Salt Lake were all probably assumed to be one big body of water by these map makers.

[@streamofconsciousness5826]

Seems to be a measurement discrepancy, the Natives units had to be uniform for the Europeans to put any credence in them, they must've got the distance between two spots right enough times to instill confidence in their navigational ability. So this is probably a long handed down story, which is why the distance is wrong, there is no record of them interacting with Asia in recent times. It looks like a deformed Victoria island with a disporopetinat sized channel that became a lake between it and the mainland. It also means that a large swath of the continent had no humans living on it, there was a gap, a unknow uninhabited land between the Natives and the Pacific Ocean costal settlements. The maps seem to omit the Rockies as well, but the lake seems to extend into the prairies and does not move north and south like a wall so it's not a metaphor for them but that should have raised some flags if they had already sailed up the West Coast. It's like a 1700's paranormal UFO type thing, scientists saying it's theoretically possible, some people from different places all with the same story that has real things in it like the people with the different knives, and why would they lie. People writing books and lecturing about something they themselves have never seen but truly believe in.

[@valw3212]

There was a sea inland North America. I lived in rural Manitoba and there were lots of fossilized shells on the land as the ploughs would bring up the underlying base. All that's left now are some large lakes in the area. Peace♥

[@greenlightning2539]

The melting of The Younger Dryas passed down through oral tradition perhaps? I doubt the inland sea would have been witnessed by native peoples.

[@Damidas]

The Grand Canyon used to be filled with water and was lined with advanced cities & temples and the entire area was intentionally destroyed by something. The buildings were melted and the remaining water was drained because there were entrances to the structures accessible only by water and people started finding caves filled with all kinds of things that were really the interiors of these ancient buildings.

[@StephieGilley]

There is a theory from mainstream science that the Grand Canyon was created by a huge deluge from an inland sea. Maybe the timeline for it needs to be studied in conjunction with these maps and Native American oral history.

[@techytech3487]

This sea or crater appears on vibes of cosmos moon map

[@5000go2]

Key word "The Stinking Ocean" definitely founds like a body of water shut off from other water making it stagnant. So could be talking about salt lake or the southern region of California roughly where Saltin sea is

[@ecoshah]

That body of water would have been the ideal size to create the grand canyon. Check how a mini version of the grand canyon was created by the flash flood when the glacier on mount st hellen melted.

[@Dan-or8qo]

or the Columbia River Gorge, which happens to be between 45 and 47 degrees latitude.

[@lordkrythic6246]

"was sued for plagarism" (Literally shows that using this rendition of the map costs money, but shows it anyway)

[@traviskoller]

There was a vast inland lake very near this supposed ocean during the younger dryas(end of the last ice age), lake Missoula. In a massive event the ice broke, massive floods ensued causing much of the canyon landscapes of western MO into ID, WA and OR. That would have been 12000 years prior to these maps and likely wouldn’t be talked about by natives as a current feature. Interesting stuff though!

[@erikbudrow1255]

As someone who lived and worked within eyesight of the strait of Juan de Fuca, it's kind of easy to see why they'd call it a sea, since the strait, the Pugit Sound, and all the connected inlets are quite a large and influential geographical anomaly, especially if you include all the straits connected that lead up into BC and even AK.

[@ericharrington1918]

If you look at the topography of the land scape. As well as listen to geologist there was at one point a massive lake or " sea" that would have been accessable from the Snake or Columbia rivers. It is possible that the mini ice age in the late 1400 / early 1500 could have been. Similar to the mapping of Antarctica's coast line.

[@rodneysmith4499]

Maybe referring about Great Basin Northern Nevada?

[@scotttaylor7146]

Ya know, if you do go just over the mountains from the great plains, you will eventually find a big lake that is salty and gross, as the Sioux described. It's the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

[@kaisailor1]

There was a giant inland sea there in the late Pleistocene, 60-65 million years ago. But not sure why it would be shown on a relatively modern map. I did a lot of paleontological quarrying in that area between Utah and Montana. It was all underwater at one point in prehistory.

[@Ozzy-R]

Looks like about the same location of the Salish Sea with Vancouver Island at the mouth to the Pacific Ocean. That’s my hypothesis.

[@jonb3381]

From what I'm seeing now, it appears the lake was indeed there, but thousands of years ago when there weren't Europeans to see it. The indigenous people were quite familiar with it. Geologists have verified it was here. When the Icecap melted it drained to the current Gulf of Mexico. I think it is referred to as Lake Missoula.

[@saintracheljarodm.holy-kay2560]

Well they are partly right: that is the Salish Sea, and the Strait of Georgia; so while not entirely accurate it did exist at and above the 42nd parallel. Had the area been throughly explored the map would have closer reflected it's true shape and size.

[@SteveSiegelin]

Sounds like they were talking about the strait of Georgia. They just misconstrued its size. In that location we do in fact have a body of water that stretches from North America into Canada and separates Vancouver from the mainland.

[@stalefurset9444]

This is Tulare Lake, it just dried up. It could reappear in a couple of months when record levels of snow melts in the spring.

[@jamescoulson7729]

I think this is just the Salish sea. It had a giant east to west river flowing out into it. It was the most populated and developed region north of Mexico so people probably have heard of it. The nations that lived there actually had Japanese knifes due to ships being lost at sea and you can go see them for yourself at the museum of anthropology in Vancouver. The Salish sea also is a fairly large sea on the west coast. It was maybe exaggerated but the Salish sea is definitely what they are talking about

[@jordanthompson2666]

I feel like it’s very obvious as someone who grew up here and had to learn the history.

[@charlielucky4201]

It is known there was a large connected body of water in that area. Both the locations and geological features of the Great Basin and the late Lakes Lahontan and Bonneville (and by default Pyramid Lake, and the Great Salt Lake) support this (and seemingly would also explain the salinity of the Great Salt Lake). Natives were highly migratory, and often migrated because of a loss of resources they required to survive. Because of this, there was little need to return to past haunts. Thus, most likely, remembrances of this large body of water were passed down in memory from one generation to the next, and then later on passed to early European explorers moving south to north or east to west as the natives likely may not have know that the legendary sea no longer existed. It was put on a map, and copied by others, until cartographers corrected the mistake. That's my hypothesis.

[@fredpetit335]

There was a very large area of water where the see is described on this map. It is called lake Bonneville and it is supposed to have disappeared in prehistoric time but the datation system that geologists are using do not seem to be very accurate. The Great Lake of Salt Lake City is supposed to be a remain of lake Bonneville.

[@SylviusTheMad]

It seems as though various different bodies of water were being described, and optimistic cartographers simply presumed they were all the same. I suggest the "sea" was the Great Salk Lake, Lake Winnipeg, and San Francisco Bay, seen from different perspectives.

[@atodaso1668]

Well the entire lower mainland in British Columbia Canada used to be underwater, it was once a massive shallow lake but it was drained in the 1900's

[@billferner6741]

Thank you for the info in this video! Btw, I noticed that in all the maps, I could see Baja California that this peninsula was drawn connected to the continent. One video I've seen told a story that it was once a separate island.

[@dudeman579100]

sea level was in fact 4000 feet higher than it is now.. salish sea. puget sound is a much larger bowl. all of seattle would have been below water years ago. also from my understanding many times over.

[@nickzalan4762]

Pretty much all the way inland to Hope BC would be underwater plus the entire west coast of the mainland, all the way up to the inland mountains of the Sunshine Coast region

[@carlmanu]

I don’t doubt the native’s stories were referring to a time when the Puget Sound was probably a mere 6 feet under water and it looked like one giant sea, along with the Salish Sea but I am wondering about the bald people they traded with.

[@AlyxGlide]

"where exactly is this North American sea? oh, above California, give our take 1500 kilometers"

[@wesleypipes9251]

I’m Wyoming there are sea shells all over in the mountains

[@brianjackson185]

I feel like the great salt lake in utah is what they may have been referring to and it may be possible that it was once a bigger sea then a lake ?

[@longhairdontcareiify]

It sounds like an understandable underestimation of the size of the Americas by Europeans who assumed the Pacific was a few hundred kilometers away at most, a typical distance from most places in Europe to a sea. They'd be shocked to discover it was actually a few thousand miles.

[@Name-ps9fx]

There was, until the 1930s (?) a very large fresh water lake in central CA....maybe this was the "Sea of the West"? It was drained in the early 20th century to create huge agriculture lands for orchards.

[@isomeme]

I wonder how much of this confusion was caused by the mouth of the Columbia River. It's at 46°N, and very wide. I can easily imagine sailing past it and thinking that I was looking at a strait leading to an inland sea.

[@robertkarp2070]

What they are depicting is the Straits of Juan De Juca and the Puget Sound and an incomplete depiction of all the other Sounds in that area, completely missing that the one mass of land is actually an Island called Vancouver Island.

[@orangemanok5800]

There was a massive lake in the middle of California until quite recently. It dried up when the rivers were dammed. It was in the Tulare area near Fresno. Perhaps that is what inspired the map maker to exaggerate.

[@jon9103]

Sounds like the first people were describing the Salish Sea, and the "sea of the west" or whatever you call it was the map maker's interpretation.

[@centexan]

I love the line about a sea being hypothesized!

[@corey57255]

This sounds like that lake that used to be in the Central Valley of California

[@mr-mizu]

Some Native American tribes talk of a tribe called the Hoon, that were like pirates. They had no alliances, grew no food and didnt trade. They just marauded around that inland sea stealing from everyone. Researcher David Hatcher Childress has some info on this. Apparently remnants of Roman ships have been found in the central valley of CA. Copper straps that bound the beams together.

[@AmazingPhilippines1]

Interesting discussion and I love maps.

[@Ouchimoo]

I heard a story not that long ago that if I just listened to the audio and not seen the image of the map would have thought you were describing that. It wasn't a sea but a seasonal marsh that flooded every year making incredibly fertile soil that was supposedly really good for growing crops in. The Mississippi flowed into it and it smelled really bad and it was apparently a really, really large area. But apparently white settlers didn't like it so they built up a dam and stopped the flooding in the area. I can't remember where the area was. Makes me wonder if it's one and the same.

[@Liberty_or_Death.]

I believe it, when I was a kid my dad a I hiked in the mountains of Cotapaxi Colorado on a friend of the family's ranch. We found multiple small sea creatures fossilized on the mountain about half way up. There's also Indian caves on the adjacent mountain and tons of Indian relics and old revolvers have been found on the property. My father brought a large fossil back so it's legitimate. He put it in a tree branch on the way up so we wouldn't miss it coming back down. We've also been the Grand canyon and I always imagined a huge flood washing it all out because they say it's just the river but there are plenty of older rivers that are nothing like the grand canyon.

[@Asking-cn6wb]

The people's that lived there probably had a very old story. Maybe the younger Dryas impact 12,000 years ago in Northern British Columbia and caused a great melt of ice and covered a huge area of land. The lake was probably there 3 or 4000 years ago or something like that, we don't know. And stretched to Oregan in the south.

[@Treesusb]

San Fran on these old maps?? This is compelling towards the mud flood theory..

[@dustyk103]

This was likely more an ancient memory probably from the time of the glaciers melting into the Scablands rather than a known place any of these natives had visited.