Kootenay Lake is a

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

located in

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, for ...

, Canada. It is part of the Kootenay River. The lake has been raised by the Corra Linn Dam and has a dike system at the southern end, which, along with industry in the 1950s–70s, has changed the ecosystem in and around the water. The

Kootenay Lake ferry The Kootenay Lake ferry is a ferry across Kootenay Lake in southeastern British Columbia, which operates between Balfour, on the west side of the lake, and Kootenay Bay, on the east side. The MV ''Osprey 2000'' and the MV ''Balfour'' are the two ...

is a year-round toll-free ferry that crosses between

Kootenay Bay Kootenay Bay is an unincorporated community on the east shore of Kootenay Lake in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The ferry terminal and former steamboat landing, on BC Highway 3A, is by road about north of Creston an ...

and Balfour. The lake is a popular summer tourist destination.

Geography

Big Orange Bridge Kootenay Lake West Arm

Kootenay Lake is a long, narrow and deep

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icel ...

-like lake located between the Selkirk and Purcell

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have ari ...

s in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. It is one of the largest lakes in British Columbia, at 104 km in length and 3–5 km in width. It is, in part, a widening of the Kootenay River, which in turn drains into the Columbia River system at

Castlegar, British Columbia Castlegar is the second-largest community in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada. In the Selkirk Mountains, at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers, it is a regional trade and transportation centre, with a local ...

. Although oriented primarily in a north-south configuration, a western arm positioned roughly halfway up the length of the lake stretches 35 km to the City of Nelson. The lake is 532m above sea level, with the adjacent mountains rising up to a maximum of approximately 2700m. The average residence for water in the lake is 1.5 years, although the west arm has a much faster rate of water replacement; about 3–4 days.Kootenay Lake, Retrieved February 15, 2011
/ref> Kokanee Creek Prov Park2 BC Rockies Px

Kootenay Lake was formed through river

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

and, later,

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate bet ...

. The erosion began during the late

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

until ice filled the resulting valley in the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

. When the valley was filled with ice, glaciers from the mountains (the Selkirks and Purcells) fed the valley's ice mass. The glacier that occupied what is now the west arm of Kootenay Lake flowed into the Kootenay ice mass. As the ice melted from this glacier, drainage flowed over an area near what is now Nelson, causing the west arm of the lake to drain toward the west. A large moraine formed near what is now the large bend in the Kootenay River near Libby, Montana. As ice melted, a lake formed behind the moraine and drained southward over top of it. The southerly drainage over the moraine eventually stopped and the Kootenay River began to follow its present course.

History

Kootenay Lake is part of the traditional territory of the

Sinixt The Sinixt"Sinixt Nation…" (also known as the Sin-Aikst or Sin Aikst,Reyes 2002, ''passim.'' "Senjextee", "Arrow Lakes Band", or — less commonly in recent decades — simply as "The Lakes") are a First Nations People. The Sinixt are ...

and Ktunaxa peoples. These native populations used the lake and associated river systems as part of their seasonal migration and trading routes.International Lake Environment Committee, Promoting Sustainable Management of the World's Lakes and Reservoirs, KOOTENAY LAKE, Retrieved February 15, 2011.
/ref> 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 seasonally

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

ed an approximately 80 km long

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found ...

lying to the lake's south within the Creston Valley. However, this has now been diked and converted to commercial

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

. A smaller wetland area has been protected in this area. In 1931, Corra Linn Dam was built at the outflow from Kootenay Lake, where it once again became a river. The dam provides flood control and winter power generation by raising the normal water level by two meters. Just down river is

Bonnington Falls Bonnington Falls were waterfalls submerged by dams on the Kootenay River between the cities of Castlegar and Nelson, in the West Kootenay region of southern British Columbia. The upper falls was named after the Falls of Clyde upper falls of Bo ...

, today the site of several hydroelectric dams. In 2003 the lake discharged 16.9 billion cubic metres 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 flow control. Also part of the treaty Libby Dam in Montana was completed in 1975.

Fauna

Kootenay Lake is populated with many species of fish, such as

Rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coast ...

, Bull Trout,

Burbot The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only 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 is closely ...

, Mountain Whitefish,

White Sturgeon White sturgeon (''Acipenser transmontanus'') is a species of sturgeon in the family Acipenseridae of the order Acipenseriformes. They are an anadromous fish species ranging in the Eastern Pacific; from the Gulf of Alaska to Monterey, California. ...

Brook Trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae. It is native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada, but has been introduced elsewhere ...

Largemouth Bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, ...

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 Sam ...

, Pumpkinseed sunfish and Kokanee Salmon. There was a large decrease in the numbers of Kokanee in the west arm of the lake in the late 1970s. The salmon fishery was closed in 1980 and remains closed as of 2011. The reason for the decline is not known; possibilities include reduced numbers of

Mysis relicta ''Mysis relicta'' is a shrimp-like crustacean in the Mysida order, native to lakes of Northern Europe and to the brackish Baltic Sea. Appearance Mysis is a small, transparent shrimp-like crustacean, of less than 2.5 cm length. It has tw ...

(which had been introduced as a food source for the Kokanee in 1949)Fly Fish BC, Kootenay Lake Karma, Retrieved February 15, 2011.
/ref> into the west arm due to the increased control of water levels, the disruption of rearing habitat due to recurring drawdown of the lake, reduced productivity of

benthos Benthos (), also known as benthon, is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a sea, river, lake, or stream, also known as the benthic zone. Approximately 19,700 people live within of the Kootenay Lake shore; about 10,250 of those live in the City of Nelson. The remaining are scattered among a number of small towns and villages: * Kuskonook, British Columbia * Boswell, British Columbia *

Crawford Bay, British Columbia Crawford Bay is a community of approximately 350 people, situated in the Purcell mountain range on the eastern shore of Kootenay Lake in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. This location on Highyway 3A is by road north ...

* Ainsworth Hot Springs, British Columbia * Kaslo, British Columbia *

Riondel, British Columbia Riondel is on the eastern shore of Kootenay Lake in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The village of approximately 250 people is on Riondel Road about north of Kootenay Bay, the Kootenay Lake Ferry eastern terminal. The l ...

Balfour, British Columbia Balfour is an unincorporated community in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The ferry terminal and former steamboat landing is on the north shore at the entrance to the West Arm of Kootenay Lake. The locality, on BC H ...

* Gray Creek, British Columbia * Kootenay Bay, British Columbia * Harrop, British Columbia * Procter, British Columbia * Sirdar, British Columbia

Upstream Influences

In 1953 water quality in the lake was negatively affected when the Cominco phosphate fertilizer plant on the Kootenay River at Kimberley opened.Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, Background and History, Retrieved February 15, 2011.
/ref> Large quantities of

phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ea ...

entered the Kootenay River; the cause of

cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria (), also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of gram-negative bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis. The name ''cyanobacteria'' refers to their color (), which similarly forms the basis of cyanobacteria's common name, bl ...

l blooms from the 1950s until the early 1970s. This plant closed in 1973 eliminating these phosphates. The construction of the Libby Dam on the Kootenai River in

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 Columb ...

and the Duncan Dam 1967 on the Duncan River, combined to further reduce natural phosphorus levels in the lake from the recorded highs.

Ferry

The lake is crossed by the

, a toll-free vehicular ferry operating between Balfour and Kootenay Bay. The ferry operates two boats in the summer and one during the winter.

References

External links

*
More on Kootenay Lake
{{authority control Lakes of British Columbia Regional District of Central Kootenay Kootenay River Kootenays Kootenay Land District