Blue Nile
The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Sometimes in Ethiopia the river—especially the upper reaches—is called the Abbai.
The Abbai portion of the river is considered holy by many in Ethiopia and is believed to be the Gihon river mentioned as flowing out of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2.[1] The Abbai portion of the Blue Nile rises at Lake Tana and flows for some thirty kilometers before plunging over the Tis Issat Falls. The river then loops across northwest Ethiopia through a series of deep valleys and canyons into Sudan, by which point it is only known as the Blue Nile.
The annual flood in Egypt is a gift of the annual monsoon in Ethiopia. In the winter, when little rain falls in the highlands, the Blue Nile/Atbara rivers dry up. In the summer, moist winds from the Indian Ocean cool as they climb up the Ethiopian highlands, bringing torrential rains that fill the dry washes and canyons with rushing water that ultimately joins the Blue Nile or the Atbara.
Although there are several feeder streams that flow into Lake Tana, the sacred source of the river is generally considered to be a small spring at Gish Abbai at an altitude of approximately 5,940 ft (1,800 m). The Blue Nile much later joins the White Nile at Khartoum, Sudan and, as the Nile, flows through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria. The Blue Nile is so-called because during flood times the water current is so high that it changes color to almost black; in the local Sudanese language the word for black is also used for blue.
The distance from its source to its confluence is variously reported as 907 and 1,000 miles (1460 and 1600 km). The uncertainty over its length might partially result from the fact that it flows through virtually impenetrable gorges cut in the Ethiopian highlands to a depth of some 1500 m (4950 ft)—a depth comparable to that of the Grand Canyon in the United States.
The Blue Nile flows generally south from Lake Tana and then west across Ethiopia and northwest into Sudan. Within 30 km (18.6 mi) of its source at Lake Tana, the river enters a canyon about 400 km long. This gorge is a tremendous obstacle for travel and communication from the north half of Ethiopia to the southern half. The power of the Blue Nile may best be appreciated at Tis Issat Falls, which are 45 m (148 ft) high, located about 40 km (25 mi) downstream of Lake Tana. Despite the hazards and obstacles of the river, on January 29, 2005 Canadian Les Jickling and New Zealander Mark Tanner reached the Mediterranean Sea after an epic 148 day journey becoming the first to have paddled the Blue Nile from source to sea.
The flow of the Blue Nile reaches maximum volume in the rainy season (from June to September), when it supplies about two-thirds of the water of the Nile proper. The Blue Nile, along with that of the Atbara River to the north, which also flows out of the Ethiopian Highlands, were responsible for the annual Nile floods that contributed to the fertility of the Nile Valley and the consequent rise of ancient Egyptian civilization and Egyptian mythology. With the completion in 1970 of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, the Nile floods ended.
Economy
The Blue Nile is vital to the livelihood of Egypt. Though shorter than the White Nile, 56 percent of the water that reaches Egypt originates from the Blue Nile branch of the great river; when combined with the Atbara River, which also has its source in the Ethiopian highlands, the figure rises to 90 percent of the water and 96 percent of transported sediment.
The river is also an important resource for Sudan, where the Roseires and Sennar dams produce 80 percent of the country's power. These dams also help irrigate the Gezira Plain, which is most famous for its high quality cotton. The region also produces wheat and animal feed crops.
The Is Abbay or Blue Nile Falls are estimated to be between 37 and 45 meters high, consisting of four streams that originally varied from a trickle in the dry season to over 400 meters wide in the rainy season. Regulation of Lake Tana now reduces the variation somewhat, and since 2003 a hydro-electric station has taken much of the flow out of the falls except during the rainy season.[2] It is considered one of Ethiopia's best-known tourist attractions.
Exploration
It is generally believed that the first European to have seen the Blue Nile in Ethiopia was Pedro Paez, a Spanish Jesuit who traveled to the area in the early 1600s; however, John Bermudez provided the first description of the Tis Issat Falls in his memoirs (published in 1565), and a number of Europeans who lived in Ethiopia in the late fifteenth century like Pero da Covilhã could have seen the river before Paez.
Although a number of European explorers contemplated tracing the course of the Blue Nile from its confluence with the White Nile to Lake Tana, its gorge, which begins a few miles inside the Ethiopian border, has discouraged all attempts since Frédéric Cailliaud's attempt in 1821. The first serious attempt by a non-local to explore this reach of the river was undertaken by the American W.W. Macmillan in 1902, assisted by the Norwegian explorer B.H. Jenssen; Jenssen would proceed upriver from Khartoum while Macmillan sailed downstream from Lake Tana. However Jenssen's boats were blocked by the rapids at Famaka short of the Sudan-Ethiopian border, and Macmillan's boats were wrecked shortly after they had been launched. Macmilan encouraged Jenssen to try to sail upstream from Khartoum again in 1905, but he was forced to stop 300 miles short of Lake Tana. The British consul R E Cheesman managed to map the upper course of the Blue Nile between 1925 and 1933, but instead of following the course of the river and its impassible canyon, he mapped it from the highlands above, traveling some 5,000 miles by mule in the adjacent country.[3]
On April 28, 2004, geologist Pasquale Scaturro and his partner, kayaker and documentary filmmaker Gordon Brown, became the first people to navigate the Blue Nile. Though their expedition included a number of others, Brown and Scaturro were the only ones to remain on the expedition for the entire journey. They chronicled their adventure with an IMAX camera and two handheld video cams, sharing their story in the IMAX film Mystery of the Nile and in a book of the same title.[4] Despite this attempt, the team was forced to use outboard motors for most of their journey, and it was not until January 29, 2005, when Canadian Les Jickling and New Zealander Mark Tanner reached the Mediterranean Sea, that the river had been paddled for the first time under human power.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ Edward Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible (Oxford: University Press for the British Academy, 1968), p. 2.
- ↑ Matt Philips and Jean-Bernard Carillet, Ethiopia and Eritrea, third edition (n.p.: Lonely Planet, 2006), p. 118
- ↑ Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, revised edition (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 319f
- ↑ Richard Bangs and Pasquale Scaturro, Mystery of the Nile. New York: New American Library, 2005
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