I'm at the State tournament for Debate and I'm stuck in a holding tank so I've had an inordinate amount of time on my hands.
I've finished my grad school application, my financial aid application, two scholarship applications, a teaching fellowship application, and started a final review packet for my seniors before testing season...
...and...
I've researched the navigability of the River Ashaba--an area of Realmslore that seems somewhat unclear, and which the DM had expressed as an area of concern on Skype.
It's very clear that
some portion of the River Ashaba is navigable. There's reference to ports and harbors and such all along the southern stretch down to the Dragon Reach.
Volo's Guide to the Dalelands, pg 122
quote:
Oldest and largest (80 folk live here) of the villages in Featherdale, Feather Falls is the traditional site of the Dale’s infrequent Dalemeets. Called to settle disputes that individual folk cannot decide for all, these are four- or five-day free-for-all debates about what the Dale will collectively do. Common agreement is rare, the results are not binding on anyone, and more often than not most time is spent meeting old friends, hitting the noses of old ene- mies, and talking about the good old days over lots of ale. The last Dalemeet did decide on some- thing, and as it happens, the decision con- cerned the only other activity of note that takes place here: All boats and barges traveling the Ashaba must be unloaded and portaged past the Falls on log rollers to be relaunched and reloaded at the wharves on the other side of the Falls or kept loaded and hauled or braked by lots of strong people using large and strong ropes. Attempts to arrange locks or water chutes have all met with disaster; the Ashaba just assumes these represent its new course, and its waters roar down them until they collapse into the main riverbed and widen it a little.
From this we must conclude that the navigation of the river is possible North of Feather Falls is possible. Not only is it possible, but it is a matter of important to
all the dales, such that it's navigation was the subject of a significant policy established by the most recent Dalemeet.
I also think that the economic character of the Southern dales indicates that these ports are for commerce, and the Northern Dales of the Ashaban valley are focused on agricultural production, particularly Mistledale whose grain fields are legendary.
According to Volo's Guide to the Dalelands, there's a disproportionate number of merchant costers present in Mistledale, and many of the local businesses are dedicated to the construction of trade vehicles--wheelwrights and such. Notably absent from this are ships and barges. It is, of course, possible that the Riverships are constructed in the Southern Dales which are more likely to have proper shipwrights close to the Dragon Reach as well as a larger urban labor base to draw on for their construction.
Moreover, the only elven communities remaining in the Dalelands (Bristar and Semberholme) are located with access to the River Ashaba which would give good access to the heartlands of Cormanthyr in the ancient past.
All of this leads me to believe that the original intent of Ed Greenwood was for the river to be navigable all the way to Ashabenford (minimally) and potentially all the way to Shadowdale. I think that the discussion of the river trade is probably underdeveloped in the existing literature because the Forgotten Realms are not thought of as a seafaring campaign, and the Dalelands are conceived of as a FR version of Huck Finn where the Ashaba is a central feature of adventures.
