History
Kootenay Lake is part of the traditional territory of the Sinixt and Ktunaxa peoples. These native populations used the lake and associated river systems as part of their seasonal migration and trading routes.
In 1958 the Kootenay Lake Crossing, an electrical power line, was built, running across the north arm of Kootenay Lake. It was destroyed in 1962 by protestors and rebuilt later that year.
The lake originally tidally and seasonally flooded an approximately 80 km long marsh lying to the lake's south within the Creston Valley. However, this has now been diked and converted to commercial agriculture. A smaller wetland area has been protected in this area.
In 1931, Corra Linn Dam was built at the mouth of Kootenay Lake, where it once again became a river. Just down river was Bonnington Falls, today the site of several hydroelectric dams. In 2003 the lake discharged 16,900,000 acre feet (20.8 km3) of water. High water for that year was a normal 533 metres, the record is 537 metres in 1961. In 1967 as part of the Columbia River Treaty the Duncan Dam was constructed above Kootenay Lake on the Duncan River, creating a 7,145 hectare reservoir for flood control. Also part of the treaty Libby Dam in Montana, was completed in 1975.
Read more about this topic: Kootenay Lake
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)
“It is true that this man was nothing but an elemental force in motion, directed and rendered more effective by extreme cunning and by a relentless tactical clairvoyance .... Hitler was history in its purest form.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)