The Churchill River () is a major

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North ...

and

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Win ...

, Canada. From the head of the Churchill Lake it is long. It was named after

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, (26 May 1650 – 16 June 1722 O.S.) was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reign ...

and governor of the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake b ...

from 1685 to 1691. The Cree name for the river is ''Missinipi'', meaning "big waters". The Denesuline name for the river is ''des nëdhë́'', meaning "Great River". The river is located entirely within the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...

. The drainage basin includes a number of lakes in Central-East Alberta which flow into a series of lakes in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The main tributary, the Beaver River, joins at Lac Île-à-la-Crosse.

Nistowiak Falls Nistowiak Falls, at , is one of the highest waterfalls in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. The falls are on the Rapid River, which flows north from Iskwatikan Lake into Nistowiak Lake on the Churchill River. Nistowiak is a Cree word re ...

—the tallest falls in Saskatchewan—are on the Rapid River, which flows north, out of Lac la Ronge into Nistowiak Lake on the Churchill just north of La Ronge. A large amount of flow of the Churchill River after Manitoba–Saskatchewan border comes from the

Reindeer River The Klondike River ( Hän: ') is a tributary of the Yukon River in Canada that gave its name to the Klondike Gold Rush. The Klondike River rises in the Ogilvie Mountains and flows into the Yukon River at Dawson City. Its name comes from the ...

, which flows from Wollaston and

Reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subsp ...

lakes. Flow from Reindeer Lake is regulated by the Whitesand Dam. From there, the Churchill River flows east through a series of lakes (Highrock, Granville, Southern Indian and Gauer), then flows via a diversion for hydro-electric generation into the

Nelson River The Nelson River is a river of north-central North America, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The river drains Lake Winnipeg and runs before it ends in Hudson Bay. Its full length (including the Saskatchewan River and Bow River) is ...

(60% of flow), and the rest flows as the Churchill River into

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay ( crj, text=ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, translit=Wînipekw; crl, text=ᐐᓂᐹᒄ, translit=Wînipâkw; iu, text=ᑲᖏᖅᓱᐊᓗᒃ ᐃᓗᐊ, translit=Kangiqsualuk ilua or iu, text=ᑕᓯᐅᔭᕐᔪᐊᖅ, translit=Tasiujarjuaq; french: b ...

at Churchill, Manitoba (see also

Nelson River Hydroelectric Project The Nelson River Hydroelectric Project refers to the construction of a series of dams and hydroelectric power plants on the Nelson River in Northern Manitoba, Canada. The project began to take shape in the late 1950s, with the planning and construc ...

History

The Churchill formed a major part of the " voyageur highway" in the 18th to 20th centuries after

Dene The Dene people () are an indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages. ''Dene'' is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term "Dene" h ...

people showed Peter Pond the

Methye Portage The Methye Portage or Portage La Loche in northwestern Saskatchewan was one of the most important portages in the old fur trade route across Canada. The portage connected the Mackenzie River basin to rivers that ran east to the Atlantic. It was ...

which connects the

watershed with the Clearwater – Athabasca – MacKenzie rivers which flow to the Arctic Ocean. See Canadian Canoe Routes (early).

Fish species

The Churchill is also home of several fish species including:

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

, sauger,

yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by S ...

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish water, brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are kno ...

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can als ...

lake whitefish The lake whitefish (''Coregonus clupeaformis'') is a species of freshwater whitefish from North America. Lake whitefish are found throughout much of Canada and parts of the northern United States, including all of the Great Lakes. The lake whit ...

cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

white sucker The white sucker (''Catostomus commersonii)'' is a species of freshwater cypriniform fish inhabiting the upper Midwest and Northeast in North America, but it is also found as far south as Georgia and as far west as New Mexico. The fish is commo ...

, shorthead redhorse,

longnose sucker The longnose sucker (''Catostomus catostomus'') is a species of cypriniform freshwater fish in the family Catostomidae. It is native to North America from the northern United States to the top of the continent. It is also found in Russia in ...

, lake sturgeon and

burbot The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiformes, gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish. It is also known as bubbot, mariah, loche, cusk, freshwater cod, freshwater ling, freshwater cusk, the lawyer, coney-fish, lingcod, and eelpout. The species ...

Hydroelectric developments

Island Falls

The only operating hydroelectric generating station on the Churchill River is Island Falls, with a capacity of 111

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after Jame ...

s (MW). The purpose of the Whitesand Dam mentioned above is to control the amount of water flowing through Island Falls, since the generating station is downstream of the Reindeer River fork.

Wintego Hydroelectric Project

In the 1970s, SaskPower was considering building another hydroelectric station on the Churchill River called Wintego. This station would've been located downstream of the Reindeer River forks, and upstream of Island Falls. The project was expected to cost $338 million (equivalent to $1.3 billion in 2020), including transmission and roads, and the capacity of the station would have been 300 MW. The cost estimate assumes a 50-year lifespan, but the lifespans of SaskPower's other hydroelectric stations have been proven to be much longer (such as 90 years for Island Falls). Construction of Wintego would also enable the output of Island Falls to increase by 70 MW, and this benefit is not included in the cost estimate above.

Other Saskatchewan

Two other potential hydroelectric developments between the Reindeer River Fork and Island Falls are the Iskwatam Generating Station and the Pita Generating Station, with unknown MW capacities.

Manitoba

In Manitoba, the Bonald and Granville Falls generating stations could produce 110 MW and 120 MW, respectively.

Gallery

Image:Churchill Lake at Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan 2.JPG , Churchill Lake viewed from Buffalo Narrows Image:Upper_falls-sm.jpg , View of upper Nistowiak Falls File:Mouth of the Churchill River at Hudson Bay (7461042054).jpg, Mouth of the Churchill River at Hudson Bay File:Weißwal 2-1999.jpg, Watching belugas is a popular attraction at the river mouth.

References

External links

Saskatchewan's Churchill River, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20151103002043/http://www.publications.gov.sk.ca/details.cfm?p=11115 Fish Species of Saskatchewan
Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan
{{Authority control Rivers of Northern Manitoba Rivers of Saskatchewan Churchill, Manitoba Tributaries of Hudson Bay