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Koo·te·nay River Koo·te·nai River (kūt'n-ā')  |
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| Kootenay River | |
| Kootenai River | |
| River | |
 The river in Kootenay National Park
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| Countries | Canada, United States |
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| States | Montana, Idaho |
| Province | British Columbia |
| Tributaries | |
| - left | Palliser River, White River, Bull River, Elk River, Fisher River |
| - right | St. Mary River, Yaak River, Moyie River, Goat River, Duncan River, Slocan River |
| Cities | Bonners Ferry, ID, Creston, BC, Nelson, BC, Castlegar, BC |
| Source | Rocky Mountains |
| - location | Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, Canada |
| Mouth | Columbia River |
| - location | Castlegar, British Columbia, Canada |
| - elevation | 1,377 ft (420 m) [1] |
| - coordinates | 49°19′0″N 117°39′4″W / 49.316667°N 117.65111°W [2] |
| Length | 485 mi (781 km) [3] |
| Basin | 19,420 sq mi (50,300 km2) [1] |
| Discharge | mouth |
| - average | 628,000 cu ft/s (17,783 m3/s) [3] |
 Map of the Kootenay River, its main tributaries and lakes, and select cities.
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The Kootenay River (spelled Kootenai River for its American portions) is one of the uppermost major tributaries of the Columbia River, flowing through British Columbia, Montana and Idaho. It is one of the few major rivers in North America which begins in Canada, enters the United States and then reenters Canada.
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The Kootenay originates in the Rocky Mountains of eastern British Columbia, and initially flows south through Kootenay National Park, merging into the Rocky Mountain Trench near Canal Flats, British Columbia (here it passes within a kilometer of Columbia Lake, the headwaters of the Columbia). It continues southwards along the Trench towards the United States border, and at Wardner, British Columbia, it widens into the Lake Koocanusa reservoir created by the Libby Dam near Libby, Montana. Koocanusa spans the Canada-U.S. border; below the dam the river resumes (using the Kootenai spelling), veers westwards out of the Rocky Mountain Trench, collects the tributary Fisher River, Yaak River, and Moyie River, crosses into Idaho, passes through Bonners Ferry, then turns northwards again. It re-enters Canada south of Creston, British Columbia, and widens into Kootenay Lake, where the Duncan River joins from the north. At Nelson, British Columbia the Kootenay becomes a river again, now flowing southwest towards Castlegar. In this part of its course, the river once dropped over Bonnington Falls, a lengthy series of rapids, but hydroelectric dams now impound much of this section of the river in reservoirs. At Castlegar, it joins the Columbia River.
The Kootenay River is 780 kilometres (485 mi) long. Its drainage basin is 50,200 square kilometres (19,400 sq mi) large, of which 37,700 square kilometres (14,600 sq mi) are in Canada and 12,600 square kilometres (4,860 sq mi) are in the United States.[1] Above the confluence with the Columbia River, the Kootenay is comparable in length, watershed size and discharge with the larger river.
The river consists of Class I whitewater from the Libby Dam downstream to the Montana-Idaho border and is a well known area for whitewater rafting and other forms of recreation.[4]
The Kootenay River is named for the indigenous Kootenai people (usually Ktunaxa in Canada, and sometimes spelled Kitunahan). In written records from the early 19th century the Kootenai people were sometimes called the Flatbows, and the river called the Flatbow River. David Thompson traveled down the river in 1808 as part of his effort to establish a fur trading district in the Columbia River system. In 1809 Thompson named the river McGillivray's River, in honor of Duncan McGillivray and William McGillivray, partners of the North West Company who had strongly supported Thompson's work.[5][6]
In 1863, a gold strike at the confluence of the Wild Horse and Kootenay Rivers in the East Kootenay resulted in the Wild Horse Gold Rush which saw between three and ten thousand men descend upon the area and the building of Fisherville, which had to be moved when it was discovered the town sat atop some of the richest deposits. The new townsite's official name, though still known as Fisherville, was Kootenai, also spelled Kootenay and Koutenais and also known as Wild Horse. By 1865 the peak of the rush was over and the diggings had been found not as rich as previously believed when news arrived in 1865 of the strikes in the Big Bend of the Columbia and the bulk of the mining population moved there en masse. Fisherville, which had a Hudson's Bay post and other businesses, continued on with a few hundred residents for a few years (most of them Chinese by the end, as was the case with many other BC gold towns also) but was eclipsed as a supply centre with the creation nearby of Fort Steele. Other gold rushes on the Moyie and Goat Rivers were followed by the discovery of silver and galena mines in the Kootenay Lake and Slocan Valley areas, leading rapidly to the settlement of the region and the creation of various "silver city" boomtowns, notably Nelson, at the outlet of Kootenay Lake, Kaslo, midway up its north arm, New Denver, Silverton, Slocan City and Sandon in the 1880s and 1890s. Serving the mines and settlers, steamer companies plied the Kootenai River from Bonner's Ferry, Idaho to Nelson and to the Lardeau or "Lardo" district at the north end of Kootenay Lake, and also on the upper Kootenay River between the Cranbrook-Fort Steele area and points in Montana.
In the 1970s, it was proposed that the Kootenay River be diverted into the Columbia River (the two rivers are separated by a distance of no more than one mile in the Rocky Mountain Trench in southeastern British Columbia). This would allow for the generation of increased hydroelectric power. The proposal was strongly opposed by both environmentalists as well as local residents. The economy of southeastern British Columbia is strongly dependent on tourism, with the Columbia River, including Columbia Lake and Windermere Lake, being very popular for summer swimming and boating activities. Diversion of the glacier-fed Kootenay River would have resulted in the Columbia River becoming much deeper and colder, flooding lake-side residences and damaging tourism. As a result, this proposed river diversion was never undertaken.[citation needed]
A number of dams and related projects have been built on the Kootenay River, including Libby Dam in Montana, and, in Canada, Corra Linn (1932), Kootenay Canal (1976), Bonnington Falls (1906), Upper Bonnington (1907), Lower Bonnington (1897), South Slocan (1928), Brilliant (1944).[1] Like all river modifications, these dams have dramatically changed the character of the river and of Kootenay lake. Many fish species have suffered from these modifications.
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Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kootenay River". Read more |
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