The Elk River is a long

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

, in the southeastern

Kootenay Kootenay, Kootenai, and Kutenai may refer to: Ethnic groups *The Kutenai, also known as the Ktunaxa, Kootenai, or Kootenay, an indigenous people of the United States and Canada **Kutenai language, the traditional language of the Kutenai **Ktunaxa ...

district of the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Its

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...

is in area. Its mean discharge is approximately , with a maximum recorded discharge of . It is a tributary of the

Kootenay River The Kootenay or Kootenai river is a major river in the Northwest Plateau, in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, and northern Montana and Idaho in the United States. It is one of the uppermost major tributaries of the Columbia River, the l ...

, and falls within the basin of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

Course

The Elk River originates from the Elk Lakes near the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

in the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

. It flows through the Elk Valley in a southwesterly direction, joining the

Lake Koocanusa Lake Koocanusa () is a reservoir in British Columbia (Canada) and Montana (United States) formed by the damming of the Kootenai River by the Libby Dam in 1972. The Dam was formally dedicated by President Gerald Ford on August 24, 1975. The la ...

, just north of the British Columbia-

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

border. Its waters ultimately join the

and flow towards the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The Elk River runs through the communities of

Elkford Elkford is a district municipality in the southeast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia in the Rocky Mountain range. It is north of the junction at Sparwood, on provincial Highway 43. Outdoor recreational activities take place ...

Sparwood Sparwood is a district municipality in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the second-largest community on the Elk River. Located approximately 30 kilometres from Fernie, the District Municipality of Sparwood has approximately 4,2 ...

, Hosmer, Fernie, and Elko.

History

David Thompson travelled along the Elk River in 1811, and called it the Stag River. James Sinclair's second settlement expedition to the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

from the

Red River Colony The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assiniboia, Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hud ...

made a difficult crossing from the

Kananaskis River The Kananaskis River is a mountain river in western Alberta, Canada. It is a tributary of the Bow River, crossing the length of Kananaskis Country. The river was named by John Palliser in 1858 after a Cree. Course The Kananaskis originates in t ...

valley into the Columbia–Kootenays via the Elk in 1854. The river was labelled Elk River on

John Palliser John Palliser (29 January 1817 – 18 August 1887) was an Irish-born geographer and explorer. Following his service in the Waterford Militia and hunting excursions to the North American prairies, he led the British North American Explorin ...

's 1857–58 map and "Stag or Elk River" on Arrowsmith's 1862 map.

Elko Dam

Elk River south of Elko, British Columbia (1891)

Elko Dam was built by East Kootenay Power Company on the Elk River in 1924. It is a

run-of-the-river Run-of-river hydroelectricity (ROR) or run-of-the-river hydroelectricity is a type of hydroelectric generation plant whereby little or no water storage is provided. Run-of-the-river power plants may have no water storage at all or a limited amou ...

dam tall and long. The powerhouse has two Francis turbines producing 12MW of electricity. It is about upriver from the Elk's confluence with Lake Koocanusa. It is operated by

BC Hydro The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, operating as BC Hydro, is a Canadian electric utility in the province of British Columbia. It is the main electricity distributor, serving more than 4 million customers in most areas, with the exce ...

Fishing

The fishing in the Elk River is known to be some of the best fly-fishing in North America, with large, wild cutthroat and bull trout aplenty.

Coal mining impacts

The Elk River Valley is home to five large open-pit coal mines, supplying a third of the world's steel-making coal. For many years increased

selenium Selenium is a chemical element with the symbol Se and atomic number 34. It is a nonmetal (more rarely considered a metalloid) with properties that are intermediate between the elements above and below in the periodic table, sulfur and tellurium, ...

, phosphate and nitrate levels have been linked to the continued expansion of the mining. Selenium levels continue to exceed the guidelines for human health. The selenium pollution has heavily impacted the

cutthroat trout The cutthroat trout is a fish species of the family Salmonidae native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean, Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin in North America. As a member of the genus '' Oncorhynchus'', it is one of the Pacific tro ...

in the river, which suffer from deformation of their

gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

s. Since

Teck Resources Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking indust ...

operates the coal mines that are the source of the selenium pollution, the company is working to implement selenium management strategies.Your Concerns, Our Response: Selenium Management
, Teck 2009 Sustainability Report, retrieved 16 February 2011.

Tributaries

* Fording River * Michel Creek * Coal Creek * Lizard Creek * Wigwam River

References

External links

Elk River Alliance

Elk River Guiding Company
{{authority control Rivers of British Columbia Elk Valley (British Columbia) East Kootenay Tributaries of the Kootenay River Rivers of the Canadian Rockies Kootenay Land District