The Oldman River is a

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 w ...

southern Alberta Southern Alberta is a region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. In 2004, the region's population was approximately 272,017.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 ...

, through the communities of

Fort Macleod Fort Macleod ( ) is a town in southern Alberta, Canada. It was originally named Macleod to distinguish it from the North-West Mounted Police barracks (Fort Macleod, built 1874) it had grown around. The fort was named in honour of the then Commis ...

, Lethbridge, and on to Grassy Lake, where it joins the

Bow River The Bow River is a river in Alberta, Canada. It begins within the Canadian Rocky Mountains and winds through the Alberta foothills onto the prairies, where it meets the Oldman River, the two then forming the South Saskatchewan River. These w ...

to form the

South Saskatchewan River The South Saskatchewan River is a major river in Canada that flows through the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. For the first half of the 20th century, the South Saskatchewan would completely freeze over during winter, creating spectacular ...

, which eventually drains into the Hudson Bay. Oldman River has a total length of and a drainage area of .

History

The Oldman River was, at one time, known as the Belly River. The

Belly River Belly River is a river in northwest Montana, United States and southern Alberta, Canada. It is a tributary of the Oldman River, itself a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River. The name of the river may come from the Blackfoot word of , mean ...

is now a separate river that is a tributary of the Oldman. In 1991, the Alberta government finished construction of the

Oldman River Dam The Oldman River Dam is a dam on the Oldman River in southwestern Alberta, Canada. The dam is north of Pincher Creek in the Municipal District of Pincher Creek No. 9. Controversy The Oldman River Dam was completed in 1991. The project had been opp ...

. The Piikani renegade, led by Milton Born With A Tooth, had attempted to divert the Oldman River away from the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District canal intake, leading to an armed standoff. The dam was constructed where the Oldman, Crowsnest, and Castle river systems converge.

2013 floods

On June 21, 2013, during the 2013 Alberta floods Alberta experienced heavy rainfall that triggered catastrophic flooding throughout much of the southern half of the province along the Bow,

Elbow The elbow is the region between the arm and the forearm that surrounds the elbow joint. The elbow includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the cubital fossa (also called the chelidon, or the elbow pit), and the lateral and the me ...

, Highwood and Oldman rivers and tributaries. A dozen municipalities in Southern Alberta declared local states of emergency on June 21 as water levels rose and numerous communities were placed under evacuation orders.

Tributaries

From headwaters to mouth, Oldman River receives: * Livingstone River *

Crowsnest River The Crowsnest River is a tributary to the Oldman River in southwestern Alberta, Canada. Location From its source in Crowsnest Lake at an elevation of about in the Canadian Rockies, Crowsnest River meanders eastward through the Municipality ...

* Castle River *

Pincher Creek Pincher Creek is a town in southern Alberta, Canada. It is located immediately east of the Canadian Rockies, west of Lethbridge and south of Calgary. History For centuries before European settlers reached this area and inhabited it, Indig ...

*Beaver Creek *Willow Creek *

** Waterton River * St. Mary River **Lee Creek *

Little Bow River The Little Bow River is a tributary of the Oldman River in southern Alberta, Canada. It is about long. From its headwaters near High River, it flows south, then turns east and flows into Travers Reservoir. Afterwards, it flows southeast into the Ol ...

Nature

Oldman River originates in the ''Beehive Natural Area'', an area of alpine tundra and old-growth spruce and fir forests. Downstream it flows through

Bob Creek Wildland Provincial Park Bob Creek Wildland Provincial Park is a wildland provincial park located in the Ranchland Municipal District, in southern Alberta, Canada. It was established on 12 May 1999 and is in area. The park is located approximately west of Claresholm a ...

and

Black Creek Heritage Rangeland Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have ...

. ''Oldman Dam'' and ''Oldman River'' are other Provincial Recreation Areas established along the river. The river and some of its tributaries have formed

coulees Coulee, or coulée ( or ) is a term applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone. The word ''coulee'' comes from the Canadian French ''coulée'', from French ''couler'' 'to flow'. Th ...

in Southern Alberta, and the strata revealed by these formations guide local prospectors to

ammolite Ammolite is an opal-like organic gemstone found primarily along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains of North America. It is made of the fossilized shells of ammonites, which in turn are composed primarily of aragonite, the same mineral co ...

deposits.

Fish

The Oldman River contains fish species such as rainbow trout, cutthroat trout,

bull trout The bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus'') is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, ''S. confluentus'' has been known as the " Dolly Varden" (''S. malma''), but was reclassified as a separate speci ...

, brown trout, hybrid trout species ("

cutbow A cutbow ('' Oncorhynchus clarkii'' × ''mykiss'') is an interspecific fertile hybrid between a rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') and a cutthroat trout (''O. clarkii''). Cutbow hybrids may occur naturally where the native ranges of both sp ...

" rainbow and cutthroat cross),

mountain whitefish The mountain whitefish (''Prosopium williamsoni'') is one of the most widely distributed salmonid fish of western North America. It is found from the Mackenzie River drainage in Northwest Territories, Canada south through western Canada and ...

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

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 ...

lake sturgeon The lake sturgeon (''Acipenser fulvescens''), also known as the rock sturgeon, is a North American temperate freshwater fish, one of about 25 species of sturgeon. Like other sturgeons, this species is a bottom feeder with evolutionarily basal t ...

catostomidae The Catostomidae are the suckers of the order Cypriniformes, with about 78 species in this family of freshwater fishes. The Catostomidae are almost exclusively native to North America. The only exceptions are '' Catostomus catostomus,'' found in ...

, goldeye, and

minnows Minnow is the common name for a number of species of small freshwater fish, belonging to several genera of the families Cyprinidae and Leuciscidae. They are also known in Ireland as pinkeens. Smaller fish in the subfamily Leusciscidae are ...

Notes

External links

* Oldman Watershed Council
www.oldmanwatershed.ca
{{authority control Rivers of Alberta South Saskatchewan River Rivers of the Canadian Rockies Tributaries of Hudson Bay