Steamboats of The Upper Columbia and Kootenay Rivers - Geographic Factors

Geographic Factors

The Columbia River begins at Columbia Lake, flows north in the trench through the Columbia Valley to Windermere Lake to Golden, BC. The Kootenay River flows south from the Rocky Mountains, then west into the Rocky Mountain Trench, coming within just over a mile (1.6 km) from Columbia Lake, at a point called Canal Flats, where a shipping canal was built in 1889. The Kootenay then flows south down the Rocky Mountain Trench, crosses the international border and then turns north back into Canada and into Kootenay Lake near the town of Creston, BC.

The upper Columbia and the upper Kootenay rivers were different in character. From Columbia Lake to Golden, the Columbia river is shallow and slow, running through twisting channels and falling only 50 feet (15 m) in elevation from its headwaters to Golden. From Golden the river flows north to Donald, BC, then turns sharply south at the Big Bend, where it continues south past Revelstoke, BC then south to south to Arrowhead, where it widens into the Arrow Lakes. The Big Bend, in its natural state before the construction of the Revelstoke and Mica dams, included a series of rapids which made it impassable to steam navigation proceeding upriver from the Arrow Lakes.

The Kootenay River (before the construction of the Libby Dam) flowed faster than the Columbia south down through Jennings Canyon, an extremely hazardous stretch of whitewater, on the way to Jennings and Libby, Montana. Larger steamboats could operate on the upper Kootenay than on the upper Columbia. The Kootenay river flows on into Idaho, where it turns north and flows back into Canada. Near Creston the Kootenay River enters Kootenay Lake. With some difficulty, steamboats could progress up the lower Kootenay to railhead at Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Rapids and falls on the Kootenay blocked steam navigation between Bonner's Ferry and Libby.