The Souris River (; french: rivière Souris) or Mouse River (as it is alternatively known in the U.S., a translation of its French name) is a river in central

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Approximately in length, it drains about in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Rising in southern

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, 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 t ...

in the Yellow Grass Marshes north of

Weyburn Weyburn is the eleventh-largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. The city has a population of 10,870. It is on the Souris River southeast of the provincial capital of Regina, Saskatchewan, Regina and is north from the North Dakota border in the ...

, the river wanders southeast into the U.S. through

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

beyond

Minot Minot ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Ward County, North Dakota, Ward County, North Dakota, United States, in the state's north-central region. It is most widely known for the Minot Air Force Base, Air Force base approximately north of ...

to its most southern point at Velva, and then back north into Canada in southwestern

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

Flowing east, it passes through the communities of Melita, Hartney, Souris, and Wawanesa, Manitoba, prior to the confluence with the

Assiniboine River The Assiniboine River (''; french: Rivière Assiniboine'') is a river that runs through the prairies of Western Canada in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It is a tributary of the Red River of the North, Red River. The Assiniboine is a typical meand ...

near Treesbank, about southeast of

Brandon Brandon may refer to: Names and people *Brandon (given name), a male given name * Brandon (surname), a surname with several different origins Places Australia *Brandon, a farm and 19th century homestead in Seaham, New South Wales *Brandon, Q ...

. The main tributaries of the Souris in Manitoba are the

Antler River The Antler River is located in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America's Great Plains in south-eastern Saskatchewan and south-western Manitoba in Canada in an area known as Palliser's Triangle. Its source is in Saskatchewan's Moose Mountai ...

, Gainsborough Creek, and Plum Creek. The

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

at the confluence is approximately above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. At the end of the last ice age, over 10,000 years ago, the rapid draining of former Glacial Lake Regina eroded a large channel that is now occupied by the much smaller contemporary Souris River. Also, much of the drainage basin is fertile silt and clay deposited by another former glacial lake,

Lake Souris 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 larger ...

Flow rates and flood potential

During the period from 1930 to 1941 severe drought conditions prevailed and

PFRA PFRA may refer to: * Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration * Professional Football Researchers Association * Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, see Consumer protection in the United Kingdom * pFra, a phospholipase involved in transmis ...

constructed four stock watering dams. In 1937 the Snyder and Ross Dams were built near Melita. In 1938 the Napinka Dam was built and the Hartney Dam was built in 1941. These were all stop log dams with a total capacity of . The Souris Dam was originally built in 1911 and was rebuilt in 1935. The Wawanesa Dam was completed in 1951 storing about of water. Most of the annual flow of the Souris River comes from snow melt and spring rains. The annual flow volume varies dramatically from in 1937 to in 1976. It is expected that the total runoff for 2011 at Wawanesa will exceed about a one in 500-year event. The average annual runoff is equivalent to 3 mm over the entire Souris River watershed.Archived data from Water Survey Canada Two large dams in Saskatchewan,

Rafferty Dam McDonald Lake, also known as Rafferty Reservoir, is a reservoir in south-east Saskatchewan, Canada. It was created when the Rafferty Dam was built on the Souris River in 1994. Before the dam was built that flooded the Souris Valley, McDonald L ...

and

Grant Devine Dam The Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', is an embankment dam located near Alameda, and Oxbow, Saskatchewan, Canada. It was constructed in 1994 to control flows on the Moose Mountain Creek, and Souris River. It provides flood protection ...

were built, in part, to reduce flood peaks on the Souris River. In summer 2011, a historic flood affected much of the Souris River basin, overtopping levees and causing the evacuation of about 11,000 residents in Minot as well as significant damage to farmland and other property along the length of the river. The channel capacity of the river in Manitoba varies from about near the border, to about through Melita, to about near Lauder and near Hartney. North of Hartney the capacity increases to more than . The drop between the border and Hartney is only about .

Tributaries

* Long Creek * Short Creek *

Moose Mountain Creek Moose Mountain Creek is a river in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Its River source, source is the Chapleau Lakes near Montmartre, Saskatchewan, Montmartre and it is a tributary of the Souris River, ...

* Des Lacs River *Livingston Creek *

Wintering River Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures ...

* Deep River ** Little Deep Creek ***Spring Coulee **

Cut Bank Creek (North Dakota) The Cut Bank Creek is a tributary of the Marias River in the Missouri river basin watershed, approximately 75 mi (123 km) long, in northwestern Montana in the United States, which having deeply eroded steep cliff banks eponymously gives ...

***North Lake **** Egg Creek *****

Hay Coulee Hay is Graminoid, grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, domestic goat, goats, and sheep, or ...

**** Buffalo Lodge Lake ***** South Egg Creek * Willow Creek ** Snake Creek (North Dakota) ** Oak Creek **Ox Creek *** Wolf Creek *

Plum Creek (Manitoba) Plum Creek is the primary outflow for the Plum Lakes (49°37′51″N, 100°43′39″W) and travels in an easterly direction for about 28 kilometres until it meets up with the Souris River, which is part of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, at t ...

, a river that drains Plum Lakes and Oak Lake (Manitoba) into the Souris River **Stony Creek, flows into Maple Lake, which drains into Plum Lakes **

Pipestone Creek (Saskatchewan) Pipestone Creek is a river in the Souris River watershed. Its flow begins in south-eastern Saskatchewan, just south of the town of Grenfell and travels in a south-eastly direction into Manitoba in the Westman Region where it empties into Oak ...

, flows into Oak Lake ***Little Pipestone Creek ***Montgomery Creek *Jackson Creek *Graham Creek * Boundary Creek (North Dakota) *

* Gainsborough Creek

Communities along the river

Cities and towns

* Weyburn, Saskatchewan * Estevan, Saskatchewan *

Roche Percee, Saskatchewan F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX S ...

* Oxbow, Saskatchewan *

Burlington, North Dakota Burlington is a city in Ward County, North Dakota, United States. It was founded in 1883, the third in a series that included two earlier settlements. Despite this, Burlington is still the oldest city in Ward County, as well as north-western and ...

* Minot, North Dakota * Velva, North Dakota * Towner, North Dakota *

Westhope, North Dakota Westhope is a city in Bottineau County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 374 at the 2020 census. Westhope was founded in 1903 along a Great Northern Railway branch line that began in Rugby. The name was based on the slogan "Hope ...

Melita, Manitoba Melita () is a town located in the south-western corner of the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is surrounded by the Municipality of Two Borders and occupies a bend of the Souris River. Graham Creek runs along the west side of town and into ...

Souris, Manitoba Souris is an unincorporated urban community in the Municipality of Souris – Glenwood within the Canadian province of Manitoba that held town status prior to January 1, 2015 (2016 population: 1,876). It is located within the municipality at th ...

Wawanesa, Manitoba Wawanesa is an unincorporated urban community in the Municipality of Oakland – Wawanesa within the Canadian province of Manitoba that held village status before January 1, 2015. Wawanesa is considered to be the Cree word for whippoorwill (Dou ...

Rural Municipalities

* Souris Valley No. 7, Saskatchewan * Municipality of Grassland * Municipality of Oakland-Wawanesa

Bridges across the river

* Eastwood Park Bridge: NRHP-listed crossing in Minot, North Dakota * Elliott Bridge: NRHP-listed crossing in McHenry County, North Dakota * Westgaard Bridge: NRHP listed crossing in McHenry County, North Dakota

Fish species

Fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

species include

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 ...

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 Samu ...

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

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 commonl ...

, black bullhead,

goldeye The goldeye (''Hiodon alosoides'') is a freshwater fish found in Canada and the northern United States. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hiodontidae, the other species being ''Hiodon tergisus''. The species name ''alosoides'' ...

brown bullhead The brown bullhead (''Ameiurus nebulosus'') is a fish of the family Ictaluridae that is widely distributed in North America. It is a species of bullhead catfish and is similar to the black bullhead (''Ameiurus melas'') and yellow bullhead (''Ame ...

, smallmouth bass, and

burbot The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish Freshwater fish are those that spend some or all of their lives in fresh water, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 1.05%. These environments di ...

References

External links

*
USGS Canoeing Information

Rafferty and Alameda Dams

West Souris River Conservation District

Fish Species of Saskatchewan

{{authority control * Rivers of Manitoba Rivers of North Dakota Rivers of Saskatchewan International rivers of North America Bodies of water of Ward County, North Dakota Bodies of water of McHenry County, North Dakota Bodies of water of Bottineau County, North Dakota Bodies of water of Westman Region, Manitoba Tributaries of the Assiniboine River Tributaries of Hudson Bay