Named stream crosswalk for the Beaver archipelago, 2026

What this adds

The ecology corpus already had strong narrative evidence for three named south- end streams, but its map evidence was uneven. This crosswalk keeps the source roles separate and makes the gap measurable:

The held NHD snapshot contains 57 flowlines in total. Only four carry one of the three target names in the NHD name field; 53 are unnamed there. That is a source-attribute result, not a claim that the unnamed channels are unimportant or that Cable’s Creek is absent on the ground.

Mapped stream context

The 50 m NHD corridor around Iron Ore Creek crosses Deer Park–Dune, Tawas- Carbondale, Kalkaska–Leelanau, Deer Park–Dune, Lake beaches, and Roscommon soil associations in the held SSURGO snapshot. It also crosses dune sand and lacustrine sand and gravel, NWI riverine and forested/shrub wetland classes, and reconstructed circa-1800 beech–sugar maple–hemlock forest and mixed conifer swamp. These are overlay signals around a mapped line, not a uniform streamside soil or vegetation classification.

Jordan’s three NHD segments show more varied corridor context. The held overlays include Roscommon sand, Tawas–Carbondale, Deer Park–Dune, Lupton- Cathro, Belding–Breckenridge, Kalkaska–Leelanau, and Mancelona–East Lake associations; dune sand and lacustrine sand and gravel; riverine, emergent, and forested/shrub wetland classes; and reconstructed beech–sugar maple– hemlock forest, mixed conifer swamp, mixed hardwood swamp, and lake/river cover. The variation is a reason to retain segment-level geometry rather than collapsing the river to one generic habitat label.

Cable’s Creek remains a deliberate research gap

The 2017 DNR management plan describes Cable’s Creek as flowing from the east side of Lake Geneserath toward Cable Bay, with sandy soils, low groundwater contribution, late-summer drying under low water-table conditions, naturally reproducing brook trout and rainbow trout/steelhead, and Type 1 designated-trout-stream status. The 1965 sandbag report and the later “Cables Creek Beach Access” lease add local intervention and access-name evidence. None of those records supplies a checked channel geometry in the held GNIS, NHD, or OSM matches.

That distinction matters for the map. The narrative description can guide a future search of higher-resolution state hydrography, historic topographic maps, aerial imagery, or a records request, but this crosswalk does not draw a line from Lake Geneserath to Cable Bay by inference.

Evidence limits

NHD, OSM, and GNIS have different source dates, geometry models, and update histories. A matching name does not prove matching extents. A GNIS point is an identity anchor, not a stream centerline. The NHD length is the length of the held segment geometry, not necessarily the full historical or current channel. The corridor overlays are contextual comparisons and do not establish species occupancy, flow permanence, bankfull width, public access, ownership, legal wetland status, or current condition.

Added 3 August 2026. Recent changes