The Little Salmon River is a tributary of the
Salmon River in
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
.
The river is approximately long and drains of land.
Course
The Little Salmon River rises at in elevation on Blue Bunch Ridge in the
Sawtooth Range of south-central Idaho near
Payette Lake
Payette Lake is a natural lake in the western United States, located in west central Idaho at McCall. Formed by glacial activity, it is situated in the upper drainage basin of the Payette River, which drains into the Snake River.
Outflow fr ...
. From there, it flows north through the broad Meadows Valley past
Meadows and
New Meadows, where it receives Goose Creek from the right and Mud Creek from the left.
The river then enters a canyon, cutting across the western edge of the
Salmon River Mountains
The Salmon River Mountains are a major mountain range covering most of the central part of the U.S. state of Idaho. The range is over long and its boundaries are usually defined by the Salmon River and its large tributary forks. Part of the centr ...
, forming the boundary between
Idaho County
Idaho County is a county in the U.S. state of Idaho, and the largest by area in the state. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,541. The county seat is Grangeville. Previous county seats of the area were Florence
Florence ( ; it ...
and
Adams County. Most of the river runs parallel to US Highway 95. It receives Hazard Creek and Payette Creek both from the right, then receives Boulder Creek, the
Rapid River and Squaw Creek from the left, and past
Pollock, before joining the Salmon River at the town of
Riggins, at above sea level.
Discharge
A
U.S. Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...
stream gauge at the mouth recorded an average flow of from 1952 to present.
The highest flow ever recorded was on June 17, 1974.
Geology and land use
The Little Salmon River formed as a result of a
rift valley developing between 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 ...
and the
Columbia Plateau
The Columbia Plateau is a geologic and geographic region that lies across parts of the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It is a wide flood basalt plateau between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, cut through by the Columbia ...
section of the
Intermontane Plateaus.
Columbia River basalts underlie much of the western and central parts of the watershed, while other types of
volcanic rock of closer origin form the foundations of the eastern mountains. The entire watershed is dissected by
fault-block rifting. The
water table
The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated.
T ...
is high, and soils are generally well drained and of volcanic origin.
The upper section of the watershed is a broad and low-gradient, sediment-floored valley used primarily for
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 to ...
and
ranching
A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most often ...
activities. It also has most of the basin's population. The rest of the river flows in a wild, deep, and narrow canyon mostly undeveloped with the exception of US Highway 95.
Logging
Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars.
Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...
has also been a past activity in the valley, and
tourism
Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
and
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...
are growing industries.
In a rare occurrence with rivers, the Little Salmon starts out in a developed, relatively flat area and flows through mountains further downstream, bearing some resemblance to the
Klamath River
The Klamath River (Karuk: ''Ishkêesh'', Klamath: ''Koke'', Yurok: ''Hehlkeek 'We-Roy'') flows through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second larges ...
, which also begins in an agricultural valley before cutting through mountains to the sea.
History
Historically, the
Nez Perce,
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
* Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming
* Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
* Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
* Goshute: western Utah, easter ...
and
Bannock
Bannock may mean:
* Bannock (food), a kind of bread, cooked on a stone or griddle
* Bannock (Indigenous American), various types of bread, usually prepared by pan-frying
* Bannock people, a Native American people of what is now southeastern Oregon ...
Native American tribes inhabited the watershed of the Little Salmon River. Their lifestyle depended on the river for
salmon
Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...
and on the surrounding lands for other animals, as well as precious natural minerals and resources that provided them with items to trade.
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
ans introduced
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
s to the Bannock, who in turn spread their use to the Shoshones, allowing them to travel further and hunt
buffalo and other big game. Settlers began arriving in the 1850s and established farms, ranches and towns. Communications to the outside world was limited until the construction of roads and railroads in the early 20th century. Despite that, the region has still remained relatively isolated.
The
Payette National Forest
The Payette National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in central western Idaho, in parts of Valley, Idaho, Adams, and Washington counties. The land area consists of approximately 2.3 million acres (9,300 km2) of federally managed ...
and
Nez Perce National Forest
The Nez Perce National Forest is a United States National Forest located in west-central Idaho. The forest is bounded on the east by the state of Montana, on the north by the Clearwater National Forest, on the west by a portion of the Wallowa– ...
cover portions of the Little Salmon River watershed, but at no point does the river flow over federally protected lands. However, the river is also completely free flowing and unobstructed by dams or dikes. Most of the watershed receives about of rainfall per year. On higher mountain slopes rainfall can be up to annually, and on the highest west-facing mountains, precipitation can be much higher than that.
About half of the river is inhabited by namesake salmon, but at
river mile
A river mile is a measure of distance in miles along a river from its mouth. River mile numbers begin at zero and increase further upstream. The corresponding metric unit using kilometers is the river kilometer. They are analogous to vehicle road ...
24.7 (
river kilometer
A river mile is a measure of distance in miles along a river from its mouth. River mile numbers begin at zero and increase further upstream. The corresponding metric unit using kilometers is the river kilometer. They are analogous to vehicle roa ...
39.8) Little Salmon Falls, at the confluence with Round Valley Creek, marks the end of the limit for
anadromous fish. However, this barrier may have been different at some point in the past, because Native Americans have traditionally fished on the Little Salmon well upriver of the falls. Other than salmon,
steelhead,
Pacific lamprey
The Pacific lamprey (''Entosphenus tridentatus'') is an anadromous parasitic lamprey from the Pacific Coast of North America and Asia. It is a member of the Petromyzontidae family. The Pacific lamprey is also known as the three-tooth lamprey and ...
, several different species of
trout
Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...
and
dace
A dace is a small fish that can be one of many different species. The unmodified name is usually a reference to the common dace (''Leuciscus leuciscus''). This, like most fish called "daces", belongs to the family Cyprinidae, mostly in subfamily ...
, and other species of fish, are also present.
Cottonwood,
willow
Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist s ...
,
dogwood
''Cornus'' is a genus of about 30–60 species of woody plants in the family Cornaceae, commonly known as dogwoods, which can generally be distinguished by their blossoms, berries, and distinctive bark. Most are deciduous trees or shrub ...
and
alder grow along the banks of the river.
Hydrology
Irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...
is now the primary water use in the Little Salmon River watershed. Although irrigated farmland lies all along the river, most of it is in the Meadows Valley and also in the
watershed
Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to:
Hydrology
* Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins
* Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
of Round Valley Creek, a major western tributary. There are of irrigated farmland in the Meadows Valley and the Round Valley Creek area, and closer to the mouth of the river. Although no dams have been built on the river, there are three dams in the headwaters of
Goose Creek, a major tributary of the river, to regulate flows for irrigation water. The total water usage for irrigation is per year.
Zoology
Little Salmon River is home to fish species such as
Steelhead,
Spring-Summer Chinook, and
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 coasta ...
.The former two species are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
See also
*
List of rivers of Idaho
This is a list of rivers in the U.S. state of Idaho.
By drainage basin
This list is arranged by drainage basin, with respective tributaries indented under each larger stream's name.
Pacific Ocean
*''Columbia River (WA)''
**Snake River
***Palouse ...
*
List of longest streams of Idaho
A total of seventy streams that are at least long flow through the U.S. state of Idaho. All of these streams originate in the United States except the Kootenai River (third-longest) and the Moyie River (thirty-first-longest), both of which beg ...
*
List of tributaries of the Columbia River
References
External links
{{authority control
Rivers of Idaho
Rivers of Idaho County, Idaho
Rivers of Adams County, Idaho
Payette National Forest
Nez Perce National Forest
Tributaries of the Salmon River (Idaho)